1100 Petawatt lasers could tear apart vacuum by 2023

Next Big Future  April 20, 2018
Researchers in China intend to start building a 100-PW laser known as the Station of Extreme Light (SEL) which would pack more than 1,000 times the power of all the world’s electrical grids combined. By 2023, 100 Petawatts of power will show new way to accelerate particles for use in medicine and high-energy physics. It would also be showing that light could tear electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, from empty space—a phenomenon known as “breaking the vacuum.” Researchers at the University of Rochester in New York, who are developing plans for a 75-PW laser, the Optical Parametric Amplifier Line (OPAL). It would take advantage of beamlines at OMEGA-EP, one of the country’s most powerful lasers. The OPAL is not yet funded… read more.