A gym-sized facility at the University of Michigan just fired the most powerful laser pulse in U.S. history, reaching 2 petawatts, two 40 million watts shots that lasted only 250 million second beams.
The Zeus laser facility roughly doubles the peak power of any other American laser, while delivering more than 100 times the global power output when unlimited moments. This new capability opens the door to medical advances, national security applications and basic physics research that can reshape multiple scientific fields.
Break new ground in high field science
Milestones represent more than just a larger number. “This milestone marks the beginning of experiments that have entered the untapped fields of science in the U.S. Highlands,” said Karl Krushelnick, director of the Gérard Mourou Ultrafast Optical Science Center at Zeus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Syblssqbze
Unlike laser facilities that previously acted as single-purpose tools, Zeus offers unprecedented flexibility. “What’s great about Zeus is that it’s not only a large laser hammer, but you can split the light into multiple beams,” explains Franklin Dollar, a professor of physics and astronomy at Irving.
Dollar’s enthusiasm reflects the wider excitement in the physics community. “Having such national resources, giving time to users who most promisingly raise scientific priorities in experimental concepts does bring high-intensity laser science back to the United States”
Chasing Particle Accelerator Performance
The current experiment aims to generate electron beams with energy equivalent to particle accelerators, hundreds of meters. This will increase the electron beam energy by 5-10 times before at Zeus.
The technology relies on Wakefield’s acceleration – symbolizing that electrons are behind the speedboat in the laser pulse. “Our goal is to use two separate laser beams to reach higher electron energy to form a guiding channel, while accelerating electrons through it,” said Anatoly Maksimchuk, a research scientist at the University of Michigan.
Physics get very strange when light encounters plasma. The laser pulse slams helium, tearing electrons from the atoms and creating a soup of charged particles. Light travels slowly in this plasma, allowing electrons to catch up with electromagnetic wake-up to an incredible speed.
Key technical specifications:
- Peak power: 2 petawatts (2 400 million watts)
- Pulse duration: 250 million seconds
- Final beam width: 0.8 microns (narrower than red blood cells)
- Facilities size: Similar to school gymnasium
- Crystal diameter: nearly 7 inches of titanium
A path to more power
But Zeus has not grown yet. The full name of the facility is “Zettawatt’s equivalent ultra-comfort laser pulse system”, which is a signature experiment planned later this year. When accelerated electrons collide head-on with laser pulses, this interaction will simulate the effect of the Zettawatt-Scale-Scale pulse, a million times more powerful than driving the laser.
Achieving 2 watts requires overcoming major technical challenges. The road is “slow and cautious”, and the biggest obstacle is the huge titanium sapphire crystal required for the final amplifier.
“The crystals we’re going to get in the summer will take us to three Petawatts, making it for four and a half years,” said Zeus project manager Franko Bayer. “The size of the titanium sapphire crystal we have is only a few in the world.”
From medicine to national security
These applications go far beyond pure physics. Zeus’s research spans medicine, national security, materials science and astrophysics. The National Science Foundation, which funded the facility, has broad potential.
“The basic research conducted at the NSF Zeus facility has many possible applications, including better soft tissue imaging methods and advancing technologies for the treatment of cancer and other diseases,” said Vyacheslav Lukin, project director at NSF Physics.
What is particularly valuable about Zeus is its accessibility. As a user facility, national and international research teams can submit experimental proposals for independent review and access to cutting-edge laser science.
Agile giant
Despite its enormous power, Zeus operates with surprising agility. “As a medium-sized facility, we can be more flexible than particle accelerators or national ignition facilities, including particle accelerators or national ignition facilities,” noted John Nees, a research scientist at the University of Michigan. “This openness attracts new ideas from a wider community of scientists.”
Since opening in October 2023, the facility has conducted 11 independent experiments involving 58 researchers from 22 institutions. Even when operating at lower power levels, Zeus proved its value to the scientific community.
The trip to Petawatt involved careful resolution of the problem, including the discovery that the shading of the critical optical components comes from carbon sediments rather than permanent damage. The team learned to balance pushing boundaries with protecting expensive equipment.
As Zeus continues to upgrade to its full 3-petawatt potential, it represents the United States’ return to the forefront of high-intensity laser science, which is the forty-four pulses of a single pulse.
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