Prof. Orban leads federal research grant on ultra-intense laser interactions
“By far the strongest electric and magnetic fields that we know how to create is through using ultra-intense laser systems,” said Christopher Orban, Associate Professor of Physics at Marion. “The problem is that you don’t just have to create these fields -- you have to control the laser interactions for these laser systems to produce real world applications for industry and defense.”
Orban is the principal investigator of a federally funded project to address this problem using methods from machine learning and artificial intelligence. According to the description of the award, the “project will investigate two methods to enhance intense laser interactions in order to accelerate protons and ions.”
The funding for the grant comes from a program within the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy called the NSF/DOE Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering. The award for Orban’s research is close to $750,000. The title of the project is “Enhancing Laser Based Ion Sources with High-Rate Data Techniques.”
