From Mars to nuclear fusion, Thales stretches the frontiers of high-power laser technology

The figures are mind-boggling. The world's most powerful laser is capable of generating pulses of 10 petawatts – that's 10 million billion watts – lasting just 20 femtoseconds, or 20 millionths of a billionth of a second. This milestone was reached at the ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure for Nuclear Physics), a scientific research facility in Romania, and for Thales, it's an endorsement of more than 30 years of consistent innovation in high peak power laser technology.

The origins of this leadership date back to the early 1990s, when Thales made the strategic decision to explore and develop the concept of pulsed radiation and solid-state lasers. While its researchers expanded on the established technology of direct amplification using diode-pumped or flashlamp-pumped nanosecond high-energy lasers, the company also chose to pioneer a second approach known as Chirped Pulse Amplification, or CPA. This new technique paved the way for ultrashort-pulse (femtosecond) lasers capable of achieving unprecedented peak power levels, and would earn Thales's research partner Gérard Mourou the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018.

The lasers from Mars

Thales has deep academic roots in this field and its scientific leadership is no coincidence.

The objective today is to adapt these technologies to meet emerging needs in industry, medicine, space, energy and other key areas, with a particular focus on nuclear fusion. "And the road ahead is strewn with challenges" says Christophe Simon-Boisson, "such as increasing average power – in other words pulse energy times repetition rate – at the same time as making the lasers smaller and more efficient."

Thales's power lasers have long made the journey from the science lab into the worlds of industry and space. On Earth, they are used to manufacture semiconductors and flat screens. In space, they are roaming the Red Planet aboard NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, helping to analyse the composition of the Martian soil. In fact, for the Mars project, Thales adapted an existing product from its catalogue to meet the demands of the Martian environment, leveraging years of work by the company's research centres.

Accelerating particle acceleration

Another of the fields where Thales is breaking new ground, and no doubt one of the most closely watched today, is inertial confinement fusion, otherwise known as laser fusion. The ultimate goal here is to build gigawatt-class nuclear fusion power plants driven by high-energy-efficiency lasers – a huge technological challenge that Thales has chosen to tackle head-on.

Particle generation and acceleration through laser-plasma interaction has similarly game-changing potential. Here, the question of size is especially critical. "A conventional accelerator needs two kilometres to reach 10 gigaelectronvolts, but a femtosecond laser can achieve the same energy in just a few metres" explains Christophe Simon-Boisson. "For the time being, this is very much a physicist's problem, but the potential for tangible applications is becoming clearer and clearer." The next step will be to increase the repetition rates so that femtosecond lasers can close the performance gap with conventional accelerators.

The industrial dimension is already starting to take shape. In the summer of 2025, Thales signed a groundbreaking partnership agreement with TAU Systems, a US company developing next-generation ultra-fast laser-plasma accelerators, to create a new market for complete laser-driven particle and radiation sources capable of generating electrons, neutrons, X-rays and gamma rays. This type of system could have a wide range of applications, such as imaging of semiconductor structures, radiation testing of space electronics components, and the development of cancer therapies or advanced medical imaging techniques.

Revolutionising industrial radiography

There are other potential benefits too. Next-generation femtosecond lasers are expected to transform industrial radiography, with levels of precision that are unthinkable today. 

It's an innovation that would be of particular interest to the nuclear industry and for inspecting shipping containers. For container inspection applications, Thales is already a partner on the EU-funded MULTISCAN 3D project. 

A bridge between civil and defence lasers

To stay at the cutting edge of innovation, Thales can count on a team of around fifty highly qualified employees. At its scale, this is a niche – but a key one given the stakes involved. 

The innovation dynamic around lasers is opening up regular recruitment opportunities at Thales. "We are actively recruiting in this field and working closely with the academic world to attract young PhD graduates and photonics experts" says Tugdual Le Bouar. "The sheer range of our innovation projects and partnerships with academic research institutes makes us a particularly attractive proposition for young engineers, offering them a unique opportunity to work alongside the world's leading experts in the high-stakes field of high-power lasers."