The EU is helping to build the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project, a cross-border scientific collaboration that will enable scientists and researchers to use new and emerging laser technologies in order to generate the most intense light pulses in the world. The ELI-ALPS project, situated in Hungary, is a crucial element of this infrastructure.
- 28 November 2016
The ultimate objective of the ELI-ALPS Project – one of the three pillars of this pan-European laser infrastructure – is to ensure EU competitiveness and maintain the leading position of the European laser science by putting in place cutting edge laser research facilities.
In this way, the project will help to ensure that Europe remains very much at the cutting edge of high tech research. Furthermore, the project demonstrates what cross-border cooperation can achieve, with the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary involved in the constructing ELI facilities.
Cutting edge research
More specifically, the ELI-ALPS project will put in place a laser based research facility in the city of Szeged in which light pulses with durations of just a few tens of an attosecond are generated. These pulses are used for basic and applied research, and are necessary for observing elementary processes in atoms and molecules, as well as for revealing physical events of light-matter interactions on the surfaces of solids.
The ELI-ALPS project means that European researchers with now have access to cutting edge equipment capable of generating a wide range of pulses. Ultrashort light pulses include extreme ultraviolet (XUV), X-ray and attosecond pulses. These laser pulses will be focused on different objects in the facility’s target chamber, in order to produce plasma; the plasma itself is the subject of some cutting edge research into laser-matter interactions and high-energy plasma physics.
The first stage of the project, concluded in the third quarter of 2016, involved the construction of the technology and auxiliary buildings. The second stage will involve the installation of equipment, and is expected to be completed by mid-2018.
Pan-European research
ELI is a pan-European research project focused on high-tech laser technology, with facilities in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania. The Commission recently approved the allocation of over EUR 250 million from the ERDF to support the development of the Hungarian facility in Szeged and of the Romanian facility in Măgurele. The research performed in these centres can be applied in chemistry, material science and engineering, and industry.
The objective of the ELI project is to promote national and European scientific research by creating a globally renowned structure, openly available for researchers from the academic world but also for the private scientific sphere and the business community. Full research capacity should be achieved by the end of 2018 in both facilities.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Attosecond Light Pulse Source (ALPS) of the Extreme Light Infrastructure in Hungary Phase 2” is EUR 256 300 522, with the EU’s European Regional Development Fund contributing EUR 113 481 285 through the “Economic Development and Innovation” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period. The investment falls under the priority “Research Technological Development and Innovation of GINOP”.