One of four articles (originally published online during 2015) to be selected for the annual (2016) print cover of Contemporary Physics. This overview published in Contemporary Physicsdiscusses the development of a new generation of accelerator-based hard X-ray sources driven exclusively by laser light.
UNL Research Report available
The Extreme Light Laboratory was featured as the cover story in the 2013-2014 UNL Research Report, which is available on the web. The website features all the stories and art featured in the print version plus selected videos, additional photos and links to other information.
The 2013-2014 Research Report is also available in PDF format.
Latest ELL Publication
Optics Letters published an article reporting on the ELL group's successful efforts in continuing to develop an all-optical Compton x-ray source. This recent advance used all-laser-driven Compton scattering with second harmonic light to generate 9 MeV gamma-rays. First author Dr. Cheng Liu explains that this result is important because it is the first time, based on published results, an all-laser-driven system generated energy sufficient to be relevant to nuclear research and applications. Read the article for full details on this novel approach. View the full list of ELL publications for results published previously that led to this recent development.
New Publication Featured
We are pleased to announce a new publication in Nature Photonics!The article reports on our research team developing a new way to generate synchrotron x-rays using the Diocles laser.The UNL announcement offers background and insight into the project, and explains the significance of generating high-quality x-rays from a compact source. You can also view the preprint version here or browse all of our publications.
Join Our Group
We have an immediate job opening for a research professional with a background in radiography. Visit our employment page for more details on the position and instructions to apply.
New Article Published
The Extreme Light group has a new article published in Optics Letters! As discussed in the article, the efforts of our research team led to greater spectral phase control by means of an adaptive feedback closed-loop. This phase control capability enabled the experimental study of the dependence of laser wakefield acceleration on the spectral phase of intense laser light.
Extreme Light Creations Featured in Art Exhibition
Prof. Umstadter created art displays and optical demonstrations for Light, a major exhibition at the Kaneko Art Gallery in Omaha. The displays were implemented and installed with the assistance of students, scientists, and engineers from the Extreme Light Lab. One example (shown in the photo) is a piece titled Color Mirror, which makes use of a spare diffraction grating, used in the Extreme Light laboratory to shorten the Diocles-laser-light pulse and increase its brightness. The exhibit, which is free and open to the public, ends March 23, 2018.
World's Brightest Laser at Extreme Light Laboratory featured in Lab Manager Magazine
"While scientists in fiction often use lasers for evil, researchers in the real world use them to help humankind. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Extreme Light Laboratory (ELL) is home to one particularly unique laser that could benefit us in many ways...."
Fruhling receives outstanding poster award
Extreme Light Laboratory graduate student Colton Fruhling received an outstanding poster award for the 5th High-Power Laser Workshop at SLAC on Sept 28, 2017.
Bright light leads to Nature Photonics publication
Congratulations to post-doctoral fellow and first-author, Wenchao Yan, and the ELL research team on their recent publication featured on the cover of the August 2017 issue of the journal Nature Photonics. The research explores high-order multiphoton Thomson scattering, where hundreds of discrete photons are simultaneously scattered from individual electrons. Evidence for the highly nonlinear electron motion is seen from the spatial profiles of the x-ray beams, which became elongated along the direction of laser polarization as the strength of the light fields increased and the electron’s figure-8 orbit became more pronounced. To achieve the requisite light intensity, an ultra-powerful laser was focused to 10^20 times higher than that of sunlight on Earth.
