Article published on juin 2008SLIC
Lasers as an information source
Saclay Laser Matter Interaction Center (SLIC), a platform for fundamental research, provides access to a broad spectrum of lasers with short (30-50 -15s) intense pulses. The three main lasers are LUCA, with its four synchronised lines reaching power levels of 2 TW at 20 Hz, PLFA, which provides pulses of 0.4 TW at 1 kHz, and UHI, whose peak power is 100 TW. These high-precision instruments have a number of applications in ultrarapid optics, particularly for reconstructing extremely brief phenomena such as chemical reactions at a time scale of around 10-15s. They also elucidate how matter behaves in response to extreme illumination; intensities reached at the target with the UHI laser are on a par with those present in stars. More specifically, an initial short pulse is directed at the molecules of interest to trigger a reaction, at time zero of the experiment, followed by a second pulse of fixed duration, applied so that the absorption spectra of transient chemical species can be recorded during the period of bond formation or bond breaking. The objective is to understand how matter behaves when subjected to a light source and why certain reactions take place.
