Thales and ICFO sign a cooperation agreement on laser technology

ICFO and Thales, manufacturer of lasers for scientific and industrial markets, have signed a cooperation agreement for developing mid-infrared lasers at high energy and high repetition rate.
With this collaboration, ICFO will develop lasers in the 3 to 6 micron wavelength domain delivering ultrashort pulses. Several technologies will be developed in the frame of this program by the research group led by ICREA Professor at ICFO Jens Biegert, at the leading edge on Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification (OPCPA) and related pump laser. Thales, leading company in the field of turn-key intense laser system, aims scientific and societal applications, such as biophotonics.
With 30 years of experience in laser design, Thales now develops and markets Petawatt-class intense laser systems. In 2012, Thales developed and delivered BELLA system, the first turn-key intense laser, offering a power of more than 1 Petawatt (1 million of billions of watts) to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (California), then the CETAL Petawatt laser in Romania, and was recently awarded a contract by the European research program ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure for Nuclear Physics), established to produce two intense lasers of 10 Petawatts each, which will be installed in Romania.
Thales is a global technology leader in the Aerospace, Transportation and Defence & Security markets. In 2013, the company generated revenues of €14.2 billion with 65,000 employees in 56 countries. With its 25,000 engineers and researchers, Thales has a unique capability to design, develop and deploy equipment, systems and services that meet the most complex security requirements. Thales has an exceptional international footprint, with operations around the world working with customers and local partners.