At the end of the 1990s, the unique terawatt iodine laser system Asterix IV developed and built at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching was moved to Prague. On Thursday, June 8, 2000, the PALS laser system delivered the first short laser pulses with an energy of up to 1000 J.
The agreement between the Max Planck Society and Czech Academy of Scineces concluded in the second half of the 1990s allowed to move it to Prague, a new building was built for it, where it became a key large laser facility of the PALS Center (Prague Asterix Laser System) - a joint laboratory of the Institute of Plasma Physics and the Institute of Physics.
The main task of the PALS Research Center is the study of hot dense plasma. The PALS Center is also one of the founding members of the LASERLAB-EUROPE Consortium. This supports the provision of experimental time to foreign users. A substantial part of the research programme consists of so-called keep-in-touch activities focused on the stage of inertial fusion coordinated by the Inertial Fusion Energy Working Group within the EURATOM programme.
8 Jun 2020
