Department of Radiation and Chemical Physics (PALS Centre)

Renowned physicist Luca Volpe recently gave a lecture at FZU, discussing the latest breakthroughs in nuclear fusion with lasers and related science. The lecture, entitled “From the recent breakthrough at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to a new European Pathway for Laser-Fusion in EU,” covered two main topics.

Does it make sense to publish a printed journal that deals with the promotion of physics? With this controversial question, the director of the Institute of Physics, Michael Prouza, opened a discussion on the future of the popularization of physics. The debate took place on Monday, October 24, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Československý časopis pro fyziku journal in a crowded hall of the SOLID21 building, and was followed by expert lectures on the history of physics and its popularization.

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research awarded the JINR Prize for 2020 to the team whose member is Dr. Nikita Medvedev, deputy head of the theory group in the Department of Radiation and Chemical Physics (Institute of Physics) and head of the theory group in the Laser Plasma Department (Institute of Plasma Physics).

Humans in every civilisation have always been intrigued by the question of the origin of life. During thousands of years, numerous answers have been provided by mystics and clerics. Then, philosophers offered their own speculative solutions of this conundrum. Science entered the field not long ago. Systematic investigations of physical and chemical phenomena, which likely played a role in the origin of life, began in the middle of last century. Currently, it represents a strong research stream wherein also our Institute participates.

In late nineties, a unique terawatt iodine (1315.2 nm) laser system Asterix IV, originally developed, built and operated at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching near Munich, was moved to Prague.

Josef Krása (Institute of Physics, CAS, Czech Republic) – presents on the International Conferences on Research and Applications of Plasmas the results of the laser-target experiments.

Already more than a decade ago, Dr Jaromír Chalupský recognized and used the potential of ablation imprint methods for this purpose. He managed to develop these methods in such an extent that he went far beyond the initial goal of the precise and reliable determination of the area of beams in a focus

The fifth summer school SFEL 2018 – School of XFEL and Synchrotron Radiation Users organized by the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University (Košice, Slovakia) in collaboration with the European XFEL (Schenefeld, SRN) and other institutions was held in a small village Liptovský Ján.