Dr. Victor Yanovsky takes us on an in-depth walk-through of the HERCULES Petawatt laser, starting with the short pulse oscillator on through the stretching of the energy pulse using their modified mirror-in-grating design. Ultrashort laser pulses are the shortest controlled bursts of energy ever developed. Optical pulses of a few femtoseconds (10-15 s) duration can be used to probe the fastest events in atomic, molecular, biochemical, and solid state systems. When amplified to even modest energies, such short pulses can achieve the highest peak powers. Also watch these episodes:
HERCULES Petawatt Laser and
Inside HERCULES - Part 2. For more information, go to:
Center for Ultrafast Optical Science.
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