NTG in laser research

The ELI-NP research facility is located in Magurele, Ilfov County, Romania. ELI-NP houses a high-power laser system (HPLS) with two 10-PW beams and a Gamma Beam System (GBS) producing a gamma beam with parameters far beyond those produced by by the present state of the art machines.

The VEBTVS100 system shown in the film (vacuum chambers, beam transport system, pump supports, control and vacuum technology) was designed, manufactured, delivered, installed and commissioned by NTG for ELI-NP.

The Role of VEBTVS100 in the ELI-NP Research Facility:
The ELI-NP laser system has two outputs at high repetition rates (10Hz) for 100TW power of the ultrashort pulses. In order to steer and focus the 100 TW laser beams, mirrors mounted in micrometric precision positioning systems (translation and rotation) are required. The mirrors and the positioning system must work in vacuum, in low vibration and constant temperature conditions, as well as high cleanness in order to avoid mirror surface contamination. The vacuum enclosures and beam transport system manufactured by NTG house several mirrors and various experimental equipment (target systems, diagnostics for laser beam and produced radiation characterization), and the modular design of the vacuum system allows further extension according to the needs of future experiments.

The first experiments at the international research centre Extreme Light Infrastructure – Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) for the study of the interaction of high-power laser pulses with matter have already started on 18.03.2020 in Romania.

The experiment aims to study the nonlinear optical effects in solid materials in order to shorten the duration of laser pulses for nuclear physics research and related applications.

This first experiment is the result of the planning and research carried out by the ELI-NP team in the last four years, together with the team of Professor Gerard Mourou, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2018, from Ecole Politechnique, IZEST, France.