French Nobel laureate Gérard Mauro’s dream laser came to life in Eastern Europe

Magurele’s Special Envoy

With his white hair neatly tied back in his hat so as not to pollute the ultra-clean environment of the room, Gerard Mauro leans over a small red box about a meter long, the lid of which has been opened. He points to the delicate optical equipment installed there and explains: “ This tiny laser delivers very short pulses of a few femtoseconds (In millionths of a billionth of a second, editor’s note). This is the seed that we will expand and grow throughout the system. » 60 meters further, at the other end of a room more than 2000 meters wide²The small initial pulse turned into a monster: the world’s most powerful laser beam, reaching a world record of 10 petawatts (10 million billion watts).

This tour de force achieved by the French company Thales is the realization of an idea presented by Gerard Moreau nearly twenty years ago that earned him the Nobel Prize…