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The Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI), aiming to host the most powerful Exawatt-class laser in the world, will be able to address laser matter interaction in the hitherto unreachable intensity regime. This opens new opportunities for science and technology in different fields.

 

 

ELI will create a platform where Extreme Light applications for the benefit of society will be dynamically promoted. In its mission ELI will practice a vigorous technology transfer to European SMEs and large firms.

High on ELI agenda will be the training of aspiring scientists and engineers in the numerous disciplines associated with the Extreme Light. Excellent researcher from every quarter of the world (i.e. from the ASEAN countries too) will be invited to participate in the research activities

 

 

ELI will be the gateway to new regimes in physics. At the same time, it will also promote new technologies such as Relativistic Microelectronic with the development of compact laser-accelerators delivering particles and photon sources with extremely high energies (more than 100 GeV). ELI will have a large societal benefit in medicine with new radiography and hadron therapy methods. It will also considerably contribute to material science with the possibility to unravel and slow down the aging process in nuclear reactors and in the environment by offering new ways to treat nuclear wastes.

 

 

The Preparatory Phase (PP) of the ELI project started in November 2008 and will last till November 2010. This design study is foreseen to be followed by a five year construction period.

 

 

During PP there are 13 participant countries under French leadership. The Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary agreed on the assemble of a joint tender dossier to host ELI.

In this October Hungary in cooperation with the Czech Republic and Romania had won the possibility of construction the biggest laser research centre of the European Union. This is the first great investment of the EU that will be materialized in newly acceded member countries.

ELI will be a European research infrastructure under joint leadership with integrated framework. Prague, Szeged and Bucharest will be the centres of the investment. It is important that autonomous research centres will be constructed, which will complement each other’s activities. Developments will be carried out there, granting workplace for hundreds of researchers. It is also emphasized that this project is open for researchers outside of Europe.

The investment will enhance on the one hand the closing up of the 3 countries, on the other hand the closing up of the whole East Central Europe. It will also facilitate the development of related sciences and application areas, technological standards of local economy, settlement of innovation services, and launching further expansions. ELI will have remarkable effects on material sciences, therapies and the areas of the protection of environment.

 

 

Thanks to the developments, which will be carried out partly on the territory of University of Szeged between 2011 and 2015, this city will be a “world centre of laser research”.

Estimated total costs of the construction of the installation are 500 million euro, and 40 % of this amount will be spent on developments in Szeged (Hungary). These costs would be financed by the EU structural funds.