Vulcan home page

Vulcan is a Petawatt (10¹⁵ Watts) laser available to the UK and international research community.

This unique facility delivers a focused beam – which for 1 picosecond (0.000000000001 seconds) is 10,000 times more powerful than the National Grid – to support a wide-ranging programme in fundamental physics and advanced applications.

These include:

• Interaction of super-high intensity light with matter
• Physics of fusion energy research
• Photo-induced nuclear reactions
• Electron and ion acceleration by light waves
• Astrophysics in the laboratory
• Exploration of the exotic world of plasma physics dominated by relativity