Abstract

One of the most remarkable advances in laser technology is the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) technique invented in mid-1980s, leading to a rapid development of a new class of compact ultraintense lasers, operating in a power range from terawatt to petawatt. When such a laser beam is focused onto a target with a focal spot of a few micrometers in diameter, the laser intensity on the target surface is extremely high, approaching 10²²W/crrf presently. Under such an ultraintense laser irradiation, target surface will be highly ionized, forming a relativistic plasma. The new physics and applications under such extreme conditions are emerging rapidly during the past decades. In this presentation we will concentrate on the applications of the ultraintense lasers in science, not including the exciting ultrafast phenomena such as the generation of attosecond pulses, the fast dynamics in chemistry, etc.

© 2007 IEEE