Advanced technologies

Optics and lasers

Optics and lasers are among the dual-use technologies that generate significant added value. The most widely publicized example is undoubtedly the Martian adventure of Thales lasers: the millionth shot was fired in 2022 by the ChemCam and SuperCam lasers aboard NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers! This incredible feat was achieved by CNES, IRAP, and Thales. Closer to home, specific high-power lasers form the basis of numerous nuclear fusion projects. Thales and the company GEN F are developing this type of equipment at the Palaiseau research centre.
Beyond laser technologies, Thales also provides high-power microwave solutions for fusion, including Gyrotrons and Diacrodes, which enable plasma heating through electromagnetic confinement. In addition, Thales Klystrons equip some of the world's most prestigious research laboratories, powering particle accelerators used for scientific research.

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Optics

Thales Front Sector Optronics - Infrared Search and Track revolutionizes air combat by passively detecting stealth aircraft through heat signatures.

This system provides Rafale pilots superior situational awareness without electromagnetic emissions, ensuring critical discretion and enhancing aircraft survivability and combat effectiveness.

In high-intensity conflicts, OSF-IRST combines advanced electro-optical technology with powerful algorithms to detect and track low-observable threats silently. Operating day and night, this compact system provides pilots precise target localization through laser rangefinder, enabling breakthrough detection capabilities in complex, jammed environments with exceptional performance and minimal false alarms.

Lasers

Thales leads innovation in high-power lasers

Since the early 1990s, Thales has been exploiting the CPA - Chirped Pulse Amplification - technique that earned Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018. This technique enables femtosecond laser systems to achieve very high peak power levels. The current world record for peak power is held by the ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure for Nuclear Physics) laser facility in Romania, a 2x 10 PW system designed, developed and installed by Thales.

The high-power laser systems developed by Thales have become the instruments of choice for the scientific community, particularly in fundamental research. They contribute to major challenges in key sectors such as space, industry and the medical, as well as to essential societal challenges such as carbon-free energy production.

High-power lasers

Key figures

40+

years of expertise in high power lasers

100%

of 10 petawatt laser facilities use Thales solutions

1,5+

million laser shots on Mars since 2012

Microwave

RF (radio frequency) and microwave power sources — including Klystrons, Gyrotrons, Tetrodes, Diacrodes and grid tubes — support fundamental scientific research. Building on decades of expertise in vacuum electronics, high voltage and high-frequency technologies, the full product lifecycle is covered, from component design to manufacturing, qualification and integration into complex systems.

As a long-standing partner of the scientific community, these solutions support research infrastructures such as CERN and ITER. They serve two main areas of fundamental research: nuclear fusion, where they power plasma heating systems, and particle accelerators, where Klystrons and grid tubes provide the radiofrequency energy required for particle acceleration in physics, materials science and medical applications.

This dual expertise reflects the capability to address the range of RF and microwave technologies required by scientific research programs, contributing to progress in both clean energy and fundamental physics.