In their project, Limpert and his team target to develop an ultra-short pulse laser system that will boost the evolution of wake-field particle acceleration. A pulsed laser system with high-peak power is envisioned, meeting highest standards in compactness, efficiency, scalability and cost-effectiveness as further essential quality criteria. The interest in such laser architectures is deeply rooted both in fundamental science and potential applications, such as alternative particle collision schemes or highly-directive cancer treatment and medical proton therapies, respectively. However, laser parameters which are several orders of magnitude above current state-of-the-art technology, such as Petawatt peak powers and Megawatt average powers along with reasonable energy balances are required. Particularly in high-field physics, researchers currently face severe issues with regard to the conception and establishment of next-generation particle accelerators. In a few years, these limits could be surpassed by the high-power laser community and led by the ACOPS research project.
With the grant, which is endowed with 1.9 million euros, the consolidation of Limperts research group Fiber and Waveguide Lasers will be funded for 5 years starting from February 1, 2014. Besides the Institute of Applied Physics, the project involves external expertise in the field of enhancement cavities by cooperating with the group of Dr. Ioachim Pupeza from the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany.