Construction activity will start this month on a 7 Petwatt laser research facility located on Colorado State University’s Foothills Campus. It shluld be operational mid-2026. CSU, DOE Fusion Energy Sciences program and a strategic $150 million public-private partnership with industry leader Marvel Fusion that launched in 2023.
The ATLAS Facility will be a unique cluster of high-intensity, high-repetition rate lasers that can be configured to fire simultaneously at a single fusion target. That burst will deliver nearly 7 petawatts of power – over 5,000 times the electrical generation capacity of the U.S. – into a focal spot roughly the width of a human hair for approximately 100 quadrillionths of a second. The trio of ultra high-power lasers can also be used independently and in other combinations to study questions beyond fusion energy, including key topics in fundamental research.
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How is the Laser powered ?