Applications of terawatt lasers

Experiments using high‐power laser radiation have recently become much more feasible through the development of chirped pulse amplification. By using titanium sapphire as the gain medium, very compact and high‐repetition rate systems reaching terawatt power levels can be constructed. Within the newly established Lund High Power Laser Facility we operate such a system (150 fs, 1.5 TW, 10 Hz, tunable 760–840 nm), which is being employed in a number of basic and applied studies requiring high optical powers. Detailed studies of high‐harmonic generation in inert gases are reported as well as the generation of hard x‐rays from microplasmas. Ultrasharp medical imaging has been achieved. Intense white‐light generation by self‐phase modulation in water has been used for biological tissue studies and for photon migration studies in green leaves.