Extreme Light Infrastructure

The Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI), the world's first international user facility for laser research, has been established as an International Association during a notarial ceremony on April 11, 2013 in Brussels, Belgium. The ceremony and the subsequent reception were attended by Robert-Jan Smits, Director-General of DG Research and Innovation, and by Ana Arana Antelo, Head of Unit “Research Infrastructures”, together with representatives from the European Commission and various ELI partner countries.
 
ELI is part of the ESFRI Roadmap for international research infrastructures of high priority for Europe. Based on strong international collaborations it is being constructed in three pillars in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania, utilizing EU Structural Funds.
 
When fully implemented in 2017 ELI will contain some of the world's most powerful lasers and make them available for the international scientific community. With its ultra-intense and ultra-short pulses of light it will create new states of matter in dense plasmas, probe the structure of vacuum or produce secondary radiation of high-energy photons or particles. These, in turn, will be used to understand fundamental dynamic processes in such different species as nuclei, molecules, or biological cells.
 
Founding members of the ELI-DC International Association are three international scientific institutions, the Romanian “Horia Hulubei” National Institute of Research and Development for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH), the Hungarian ELI-Hu Research and Development Non-Profit Limited Liability Company, and the Italian Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A. The Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic will join the Association immediately after its establishment. Institutions from other countries such as Germany, the UK, France and others are expected to follow. 
Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:59