How to make high energy density material

In this video, PhD student Emma Hume shows us how the world’s most powerful lasers can be used to create some of the most extreme conditions on Earth.

Intensity, (I), is one measure of how extreme the laser focusing is. It is given by the equation (I=frac{E}{At}) where (t) is the length of time the laser is on for (the so-called pulse length), (E) is the energy delivered by the laser in that time, and (A) is the area of the laser focal spot.

A modestly sized high-power laser might deliver about 1000 J of energy in 10 ns (10^-8 s) in a circular spot of radius 0.2 cm (or using area, (A=pi r^2), about 0.1 cm²). This gives an intensity of 10¹² Wcm^-2.

As we will see in the next step, as we slowly increase the intensity of the laser incident on our sample we can create and explore ever more exotic and unfamiliar forms of matter, starting with high energy density states, and ending with the creation of new matter.