When lasers were invented over half a century ago they were dismissed as a “solution looking for a problem”. Since then lasers have come to revolutionise our lives through their practical applications.
Today, scientists are using lasers to attempt to recreate fusion, the energy source of the sun, to create a clean and inexhaustible supply of energy for the future. Physicist Kate Lancaster leads us on a journey through this extreme world, from the basics of how lasers work to ultra-intense giant lasers which might provide clean energy for everyone.
Kate Lancaster is an experimental plasma physicist with expertise in inertial fusion energy and ultra-intense laser plasma interactions, industrial engagement, knowledge transfer, teaching, and science communication (speaking, broadcast, and written).
She is the programme leader for MSc in Fusion Energy and part of the physics department at the University of York.
This talk was livestreamed on 9 December 2021.
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