Joint Research Activities

During FP6 a number of major trends have emerged in the laser world which should orient the next steps in LASERLAB-EUROPE:

(i) in all fields of science including micro- and nano-technologies, shorter temporal and smaller geometrical structures are the frontiers to be explored, requiring ultra-short-pulse
(attosecond) and ultra-short-wavelength sources;

(ii) laser acceleration has a huge potential as a source of energetic particles, for applications of high societal impact (e.g., material sciences and medicine), linking also lasers to the accelerator-based light sources;

(iii) high energy lasers are frequently the key to novel applications and new science, but suffer from extremely low repetition rates and average powers;

(iv) laser tools and techniques have been flourishing in very active, autonomous and sophisticated applications,
especially in biology and biomedicine. These evolutions will be addressed in the five JRAs proposed by
LASERLAB-EUROPE II, namely:

JRA1: Attosecond Laser sources and Applications; Design and INnovation (ALADIN)
JRA2: High Average and Peak Power lasers for Interaction Experiments (HAPPIE)
JRA3: LAser Plasma Acceleration TECHniques (LAPTECH)
JRA4: Advanced OPTical Techniques in BIO-imaging and Bio-processing (OPTBIO)
JRA5: Sources of Femtosecond ultra-INtense X-rays (SFINX)