Relativistic laser-matter interaction: from attosecond pulse generation to fast ignition
G. A. Mourou · C. L. Labaune · Mike Dunne · N. Naumova · V. T. Tikhonchuk
Abstract and summary · read the original at the source · none found
In one page
Five of the people who were about to build Europe’s biggest light machines take stock of their own field. Relativistic laser-matter interaction means shining a pulse so intense that the electrons it shakes are driven to nearly the speed of light, and Mourou, Labaune, Dunne, Naumova and Tikhonchuk argue that the subject has split cleanly in two, and that each half now needs its own machine. One half is fusion: squeeze a fuel pellet, then light it with a separate ultra-short pulse — fast ignition. The European instrument for that, HiPER paired with the PETAL laser, was aimed at a thermonuclear gain of one hundred. The other half chases intensity for its own sake: attosecond and even zeptosecond flashes, beams of particles and photons, and the exotic physics that appears when light gets strong enough. Its instrument is the Extreme Light Infrastructure, meant to push past the relativistic regime into the ultra-relativistic domain above ten to the twenty-fourth watts per square centimetre.
Why it matters hereChapter 9 wants the hot, dense, briefly held plasma — and fast ignition is the cleanest statement of how to make one on purpose, by separating the squeezing from the lighting. Chapter 4 wants the other end of the same instrument: at the intensities the Extreme Light Infrastructure was designed for, the light is strong enough that the vacuum itself becomes the experiment, which is where the site’s metric questions stop being theoretical.
What it claims
01Relativistic laser-matter interaction has branched into two main directions: the first motivated by laser inertial confinement fusion, warm dense matter, fast ignition and astrophysics in the laboratory, and the second driven by ultra-high intensity, exotic physics, high-energy particle and photon beam generation, and time-resolved attosecond — the authors add zeptosecond — science.Abstract, first sentence
Settled physics02Both branches are held to be mature enough, from experimental and theoretical standpoints alike, that a large European infrastructure for each is contemplated as part of the European Roadmap — that is, the authors treat the science as settled enough to justify committing national-scale hardware to it.Abstract, second sentence
On the bench now03The fusion machine of the pair, HiPER coupled with the PETAL laser, is dedicated to fast ignition with the stated aim of obtaining a thermonuclear gain of 100 — a hundred times more fusion energy out than laser energy in.Abstract, third sentence
Designed, not yet built04The intensity machine of the pair, the Extreme Light Infrastructure, is designed to go beyond the relativistic regime and foray into the ultra-relativistic domain, at intensities greater than ten to the twenty-fourth watts per square centimetre.Abstract, third sentence
Designed, not yet built05The paper’s purpose is to set out the intriguing perspectives that these two projects will offer — an invited review written by the people leading them, at the moment the European community was deciding whether to build both.Abstract, closing sentence; Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion volume 49, issue 12B, pages B667 to B675
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Read it · abstract
Abstract
The field of laser–matter interaction has branched out in two main directions. The first, motivated by laser inertial confinement fusion, warm-dense-matter, fast ignition and astrophysics in laboratory, and the second driven by ultra-high intensity, exotic physics, high-energy particle, photon beam generation and time-resolved attosecond (zeptosecond) science. The degree of maturity from both experimental and theoretical stand-points is such that a large European infrastructure for each branch is contemplated as part of the European Roadmap. The first one, HiPER-PETAL will be dedicated to fast ignition with the aim of obtaining a thermonuclear gain of 100, whereas the second, Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) could go beyond the relativistic regime to foray into the ultra-relativistic domain greater than 10²⁴ W cm⁻². In this paper we highlight the intriguing perspectives that these two projects will offer.
The way in
https://doi.org/10.1088/0741-3335/49/12b/s61SOURCE NOT REACHED — the summary and the claims below are written from the published abstract and the bibliographic record, and each claim is located to the abstract rather than to a page of the paper, because no readable copy of the full text could be obtained. What was tried, on 8 September 2026: the publisher PDF at iopscience.iop.org, which Unpaywall and Semantic Scholar both label bronze open access, returns an interstitial HTML page to a script rather than the article; the Internet Archive holds captures of that PDF address but every one is a redirect, not a document; HAL, the French national repository, holds no copy under this title or DOI; the INSPIRE-HEP literature API returns no record for the DOI; STFC ePubs, the repository of the laboratory the third author worked at, returns no record; and the CoLab mirror carries the abstract but flags the article as not open access. The abstract reproduced below is the publisher’s own, taken from the Crossref and OpenAIRE deposits, with two typographic repairs where the deposit had lost its formatting: the exponent in the ELI intensity is restored to 10 to the twenty-fourth watts per square centimetre, and the inequality is written out as ‘greater than’. BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD. Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, volume 49, issue 12B, pages B667 to B675, published 1 December 2007 — the issue that collects the invited papers of the European Physical Society plasma conference. NAMES. Publisher records give the authors as G A Mourou, C L Labaune, M Dunne, N Naumova and V T Tikhonchuk; only the third is confirmed in full by a publisher-derived record, as Mike Dunne, so the other initials are left as printed. AFFILIATIONS, from the OpenAlex and OpenAIRE records: CNRS, École Polytechnique, ENSTA and the Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée for Mourou and Naumova; CNRS, École Polytechnique and the CEA for Labaune; the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for Dunne; CNRS, the CEA and the Centre Lasers Intenses et Applications at Bordeaux for Tikhonchuk. On this site, the physics of the extreme-intensity branch is at [/library/stm-3b9cee0ab4](/library/stm-3b9cee0ab4), the laser-fusion branch as it stands now at [/library/stm-f585d315d5](/library/stm-f585d315d5), and the attosecond tools this paper anticipates at [/library/stm-73afde0e5d](/library/stm-73afde0e5d) and [/library/stm-7edbaeddb5](/library/stm-7edbaeddb5).
How to cite it
G. A. Mourou, C. L. Labaune, Mike Dunne, N. Naumova, V. T. Tikhonchuk (2007) Relativistic laser-matter interaction: from attosecond pulse generation to fast ignition. doi:10.1088/0741-3335/49/12b/s61
Where it sits in the curriculum
Fusion machines: pinches, focus devices and inertial driversScalar waves and the field behind the fields