Romania, on map reference in laser technology research

The most powerful laser project in the region, inaugurated in Magurele, near Bucharest.

The most powerful laser in Europe, unique in region and the second worldwide, of one petawatt, was inaugurated at the National Institute for Laser, Plasma & Radiation Physics (INFLPR) of Magurele on Tuesday.

“(…) The reality and truth are (…) that actually ELI (ed. note Extreme Light Infrastructure) would never have been provided to Romania and to Magurele Platform if there wouldn’t be a base, if there wouldn’t have been something before ELI, namely, first and foremost, a 52 years of tradition. (…) Romania had a research and a very important human resource. This is the capacity of the team here to have the highest performance and the ability to develop innovative projects and, virtually, all this infrastructure, human first and then the material one, tradition, school, and I speak here about universities and academic environment,” Prime Minister Victor Ponta said in his opening speech, gov.ro informs and continued: “ (…) The fact that they are now interested to come back, both the Romanian and the European researchers, the fact that we were able to attract them again and to bring back to Romania its most valuable asset, which is the human resource, the intelligence and creativity, is the greatest advantage which the ELI, the CETAL (Integrated Centre for Advanced Laser Technologies) project and all the other projects developed here in Magurele bring.”

The Institute hosts the most powerful laser in Europe, the second most powerful laser worldwide, capable to produce laser pulses of one petawatt, with a duration of 25 femtoseconds.

According to Minister Delegate for Higher Education and Research Mihnea Costoiu, attending the event, the CETAL infrastructure is the result of a project entirely funded from the state budget with RON 72 million within the national programme for research-development in the period 2007-2013.
“It’s unique in Europe, through the equipment range and the latest technology level. It represents an essential stage in the completion of the ELI-NP facility, the more famous project which will include two lasers of 10 petawatts,” the Minister said according to agerpres.com. He maintained that, at the same time with the CETAL inauguration, new prospects for high-level research would emerge, such as applications in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, energy, the science of materials, ultra-advanced production technologies, which would have a significant impact for the Romanian economy.
“Even if we mention only the huge potential in the areas of particle acceleration for testing the components used in the space industry, the generation of hard X-rays for industrial applications or the protonotherapy in medicine, a spectacular direction range is being shaped up, where the Romanian research will definitely overcome the current barriers. The new generation of researchers of Romania and the next generations will have the possibility to conduct here research projects that require resources which until now were available only in a few laboratories in the USA, Germany, the UK or South Korea. CETAL will draw, it has already done this, teams of researchers from abroad, the Romanian scientific diaspora, included,” Costoiu also said.

Built in Bucharest-Magurele, ELI-NP is one of the three pillars of ELI – THE EXTREME LIGHT INFRASTRUCTURE, along with the facilities dedicated to the study of secondary sources (Dolni Brezany, near Prague) and attosecond pulses (Szeged). ELI-NP will create a new European laboratory to consistently investigate a very broad range of science domains, from new fields of fundamental physics, new nuclear physics and astrophysics topics, to applications in material science, life sciences and nuclear materials management.