Since the invention of the laser in the 1960s, scientists have been striving to enhance its peak power and develop devices that emit coherent light at increasingly shorter wavelengths. These advancements are aimed at improving image resolution and facilitating the exploration of quantum nuclear states.
Progress has been made with regard to peak power, most notably with the invention of chirped pulse amplification by University of Rochester researchers in the 1980s, a breakthrough that garnered the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018. However, developing lasers that produce very-high-energy light, such as gamma rays, has remained elusive. That’s in part because “coherent” light waves are in sync with each other, creating a stronger effect in combination. This effect is harder to achieve at higher-photon energies. And while lasers can now produce coherent light in the visible, ultraviolet, and x-ray ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, doing so beyond the x-ray range—which is where gamma rays exist—remains a challenge.
To overcome this obstacle, Rochester researchers secured National Science Foundation (NSF) funding in collaboration with colleagues from ELI Beamlines in the Czech Republic to investigate the coherence properties of the radiation emitted when dense bunches of electrons collide with a strong laser field. In doing so, the researchers aim to understand how to produce coherent gamma rays and use these new radiation sources for research and applications to create antimatter, study nuclear processes, and image dense objects or materials, such as scanning shipping containers.
To read more, click here.