Laboratory for Laser Energetics

“All the stars, including the sun, are powered by fusion. We are here because of fusion. But fusion is really hard to create,” says E. Michael Campbell, director of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

Every time you pick up your smartphone, you are holding a product made possible by a Nobel Prize–winning technology developed at the University of Rochester.

University of Rochester doctoral graduate Donna Strickland '89 (PhD) and former optics faculty member Gérard Mourou shared the Nobel Prize in Physics today for work they undertook at the University's Laboratory for Laser Energetics. Their breakthrough paved the way for the creating very short and very intense laser pulses now used in a variety of applications, from LASIK eye surgery to the manufacturing of materials used in cell phones.

After a great deal of uncertainty, the final FY 2019 Energy and Water bill that was just passed by the U.S. Congress includes $80 million for the LLE, a $5 million increase over FY 2018.

Liquid metallic hydrogen is not present naturally on Earth and has only been created in a handful of places, including the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics. LLE scientists are researching the properties of liquid metallic hyrdrogen to understand how planets both inside and outside our solar system form magnetic shields.

This Senate bill must now be reconciled with the House of Representatives’ bill, which included $68 million for LLE. Both bills reject the Administration’s budget request to cut the Lab’s FY19 funding dramatically and to phase out of all federal support for LLE in three years.

University Research Awards for 2018-19 have been awarded to 15 projects ranging from an analysis of the roles of prisons in the Rochester region, to a new approach to genome editing, to new initiatives for advanced materials for powerful lasers.

Gilbert “Rip” Collins and Riccardo Betti will help facilitate partnerships with the Laboratory for Laser Energetics and expand research in laser, high-energy-density, and fusion sciences.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer announced a three-part plan to protect and expand the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) during his visit to the LLE on Monday, March 5. The Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget, announced last month, proposed significant cuts to the lab and a “three-year ramp-down” in federal support. During his visit, Schumer praised the LLE for creating jobs and advancing scientific research in physics, optics, and photonics. “The Laser Lab is vital not only to Rochester but to the United States and our national security,” Schumer said. “Turning out the lights on the Laser Lab is a horrible idea, and I promise you, it will not happen under my watch.” (University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster)

The universe is filled with magnetic fields, but how it got that way has long been a mystery. To explain the magnetization of the universe, scientists proposed the existence of a “turbulent dynamo.” The phenomenon had never before been measured or observed directly—until recently.