10 million degrees in the shade

STFC Rutherford cranks up the petawatt laser.

A team of scientists working at STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire, have succeeded in heating solid density matter to 10 million degrees Kelvin by using intense pulses from the Vulcan petawatt laser.
 
The force of one petawatt (100 times the entire world’s electricity production) was focused on a spot which was only a few microns wide. The beam, which only lasted for a fraction of a second, made it possible to heat the material above its normal melting point.
 
The experiment is useful in that it allows researchers to replicate conditions found under extraordinary astrophysical occurrences, such as supernova explosions.
 
Commenting on the laser, the Principal Investigator Professor Peter Norreys said:
 “This is an exciting development – we now have a new tool with which to study really hot, dense matter. Careful selection of the target parameters allows access to this new regime.”

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