THE ULTRAHIGH-PEAK-POWER LASER - PRESENT AND FUTURE

The technique of chirped pulse amplification has revolutionized our ab ility to produce high-peak-power pulses. It is possible to produce wit h tabletop systems pulses in the 10-TW range and peak intensities in t he 10(19) to 10(20)-W/cm(2) range. With some refinements and with supe rior energy storage materials, even higher peak power in the petawatt range should be possible from tabletop systems. In this paper we show the ultimate achievable power and intensity, as well as their applicat ions in science and technology. Their applications cover a wide variet y of fields, such as precision surgery, micromachining, coherent and i ncoherent X-ray generation, thermonuclear ignition, particle accelerat ion, and nonlinear quantum electrodynamics.