Professor Steven Rose, Head of the Plasma Physics Group and Director of the Institute of Shock Physics, presents his inaugural lecture “High-power lasers and the extraordinary conditions that they can produce”.
Abstract: The world’s most powerful lasers have allowed us to heat and compress material in the laboratory to the most extreme conditions ever produced and similar to those believed to exist in a number of astrophysical situations. Over the last thirty years we have discovered how, not only to produce those conditions, but to devise experiments that allow high quality information to be recorded. In this talk I will describe experiments already undertaken as well as future experiments that are planned for the next generation of high-power lasers. In particular in the next few years a demonstration of thermonuclear fusion is planned at the world’s largest laser, the National Ignition Facility in the USA, that will create the most extreme conditions to date: several times denser and twenty times hotter than the centre of the Sun.
Biography: Professor Rose joined Imperial College as the Head of Plasma Physics in December 2006. Prior to this he was at Oxford University as a William Penney Visiting Professor and Keeley Visiting Fellow of Wadham College. Professor Rose has worked in plasma physics for all his career, with a particular emphasis on plasmas produced using high-power lasers. He has spent much of that time at the two high-power laser facilities in the UK: the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory’s Central Laser Facility where he became the Associate Director for Physics and at AWE where he was the Head of Plasma Physics. Most recently he has been appointed the Director of Imperial College’s Institute for Shock Physics.
In the Chair: Professor Sir Peter Knight FRS, Senior Principal, Imperial College London
Vote of thanks: Professor Geoff Pert FRS, Department of Physics, University of York
A pre-lecture tea, coffee and cake reception will be served in the Physics Common Room, level 8, Blackett Laboratory, South Kensington Campus from 16.45, a post lecture reception will follow the lecture.
To register for this lecture please email Amanda Cerny, amanda.cerny@imperial.ac.uk
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