Science

The Central Laser Facility provides and develops state of the art laser systems for visiting UK scientists to conduct investigations at the forefront of scientific leadership, opening up new opportunities for the advancement of human endeavours in this field.

The work undertaken at the CLF covers a broad range of topics from investigating complex biological reactions within cells to examining new ideas for future production energy.

Our Annual Report provides technical details of the work carried out in the last 12 months. The CLF Highlights Brochure (PDF - 4227kB - link opens in a new window) gives a more general view of the breadth of multidisciplinary science programme. Our most recent high impact publications are on the news page.

The high power laser experimental programme on Vulcan, Astra Gemini and Astra TA2 includes work on ion and electron acceleration, x-ray and attosecond pulse production, warm dense matter and electron transport studies for fusion energy research. Read more about some of these research programmes:

• Stellar shocks and jets in the laboratory (PDF - 218kB - link opens in a new window)
• Relativistic oscillating plasma surfaces - A route to intense attosecond science (PDF - 261kB - link opens in a new window)
  
• Novel compact particle accelerators and X-ray sources (PDF - 239kB - link opens in a new window)
  
• Getting the most out of laser-ion acceleration (PDF - 62kB - link opens in a new window)
  
• X-Ray Scattering from Warm Dense Matter at Vulcan (PDF - 148kB - link opens in a new window)
• Laser-ion acceleration - towards table top accelerators (PDF - 222kB - link opens in a new window)

The Plasma Physics group carries out theoretical and computational research to complement the experimental programme of high power lasers.

The experimental programme on Artemis focuses on applications of ultrafast laser pulses, and on using XUV pulses generated through high harmonic generation for applications in materials science and gas-phase chemistry.

The Molecular Structure and Dynamics Group combines laser, detector and sample manipulation technology for studies of molecular dynamics (on the femtosecond to microsecond timescales) to address scientific problems in the physical and life sciences. Their scientific highlights include work on protein and DNA dynamics.

The Functional Biosystems Imaging Group is the home of the OCTUPUS imaging cluster that combines multicolour light sources and a range of microscopy techniques. Their scientific highlights include work on cancer cells.