By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-12 13:19:30 | Updated at 2025-01-12 18:37:39
5 hours ago
China has started building state-of-the-art laser research facilities that will enable scientists to directly observe electrons in action, something they hope will open the way for breakthroughs in fields such as new materials, medicine and energy systems.
The Advanced Attosecond Laser Infrastructure (AALI) will operate from two sites, in Dongguan in Guangdong and Xian in Shaanxi, and will generate light pulses lasting billionths of a billionth of a second.
These pulses will act as a super slow-motion camera that can capture the movements of the tiniest building blocks of the universe, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
It will become the second laser of its kind following the Attosecond Light Pulse Source in Szeged, Hungary.
Of the facility’s 10 beamlines, six will be built in Dongguan, with the remaining four constructed in Xian.
“Dongguan houses several other large-scale scientific facilities that can collaborate with AALI to advance comprehensive attosecond physics research,” Wei Zhiyi, the project’s chief scientist from the Chinese Academy of Science’s Institute of Physics told CCTV on Friday.
Meanwhile, Xian is home to numerous universities with robust research capabilities and a well-established technological infrastructure, he added.
