The Extreme Light Infrastructure ERIC/ ELI Beamlines
General description
ELI Beamlines is an international laser infrastructure and part of the ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) pan-European project representing a unique tool of support of scientific excellence in Europe. The institute possess lasers with an intensity almost 10 times greater than the currently achieved values and offers their scientific users a unique source of radiation and rays of accelerated particles. These beamlines enable pioneering research not only in physics and material science, but also in biomedicine and laboratory astrophysics and many other fields. ELI-Beamlines is the statutory seat of the newly established ELI-ERIC consortium. Its founding members are, in addition to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy and Lithuania. Germany and Bulgaria are founding Observers with an aim to fully join at a later date. Other European and non-European countries expressed interest to join ELI-ERIC after establishment.
The ELI Beamlines facility holds a unique position in the arena of high-power laser facilities: it is the first infrastructure of such dimensions that is fully dedicated to users. ELI Beamlines’ infrastructure is the most multifunctional of all existing and projected laser facilities. It has been designed not only to serve researchers who specialize in laser science, but it will also accommodate researchers from other fields such as material sciences and engineering, medicine, biology, chemistry, and astrophysics. In line with the recommendations of the European Union and the European Strategic Forum on Research Infrastructures, the ELI Beamlines facility enforces an open access policy for researchers, irrespective of their countries or institutions of origin. These facilities, which are widely open to the international user community, allocates access time on the basis of open competition and evaluation of the research proposals by international peer review. This already guarantee the scientific excellence of the facility. Furthermore, significant access is being given to students, technology co-developers, and contractual users from within the industry. ELI-Beamlines is a holder of the European HR Excellence in Research Award.
Key Research Facilities, Infrastructure and Equipment
- Laser L1 Allegra (being developed in house by the ELI Beamlines laser team): designed to generate <20 fs pulses with energy exceeding 100 mJ per pulse at a high repetition rate (1 kHz).
- LASER 2 Duha: 100 TW, 2 J, 50 Hz: designed to be a high repetition rate 100 TW-class laser.
- Laser L3-HAPLS: designed for PW pulses with energy of at least 30J and duration <30 fs at a repetition rate of 10 Hz.
- Laser L4 ATON: designed to generate an extremely high and unprecedented peak power of 10 PW (Petawatt) in pulses with duration of 150 fs.
- Experimental hall E1 houses laser-driven secondary sources and experimental end-stations for applications in molecular, bio-medical, and materials sciences.
- Experimental hall E2 is dedicated to the generation of ultrafast and bright hard X-ray beams for user experiments.
- The plasma physics platform located in the experimental hall E3 is a multi-functional experimental infrastructure designed to perform laser-plasma and laser-matter interaction research.
- E4 experimental hall is dedicated to user experiments that involve ion acceleration.
- E5 experimental hall is dedicated to electron acceleration and to X-ray user experiments.
- TERESA (TEstbed for high REpetition-rate Sources of Accelerated particles) is a laser–plasma experimental area that has been recently commissioned at ELI Beamlines.
- High-performance computing centre
Contact person
Contact us to know more about our location and work environment. Please use the main contact for questions related to administrative matters. Please contact the supervisors/group leaders of respective research groups regarding feasibility of your research proposal with regard to the research group activities.
Daniele Margarone
Director of Research and OperationsSupervisors
Gabriele Maria Grittani
Gabriele Maria Grittani
I am the leader of the Electron Acceleration Group and the Deputy Head of the Department of Radiation Physics and electron acceleration at ELI-Beamlines in the Czech Republic. I received the Master’s Degree in Medical Physics at the University of Pisa (Italy) and the Ph.D. degree in Physical engineering in 2018 at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic. During my studies, I had the opportunity to spend long stays in several international institutions, such as Fermilab (USA), LOA (France), LMU (Germany) and KPSI-QST (Japan). At ELI-Beamlines we have built and commissioned two laser wakefield acceleration beamlines, ALFA (2 TW, 1 kHz) and ELBA (0.4 PW, 3.3 Hz).
Jaroslav Nejdl
Jaroslav Nejdl
I am a group leader of a laser-driven X-ray sources team, a deputy of the Department of Radiation Physics and electron acceleration at the ELI-Beamlines in the Czech Republic. I am also a lecturer of plasma physics and X-ray photonics at Czech Technical University (CTU) in Prague. I received my Ph.D. degree in Physical engineering in 2012 at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic. I was awarded the Fulbright scholarship and worked as a visiting scholar at Colorado State University, CO USA in 2011 and 2012. During my studies, I have also pursued a year-long internship at the Laboratory of applied optics (LOA), Ecole Polytechnique, France. Since 2013 I have built a group that has been responsible for the implementation of various laser-driven sources of X-rays at the ELI Beamlines facility. This exciting work is still ongoing. Some X-ray beamlines are yet to be commissioned and some are already operated for user experiments and provide unique tools to the international scientific community.
About the position
The successful candidate will be based at the Department of Radiation Physics and electron acceleration at the ELI Beamlines facility in Dolní Břežany.
The Postdoctoral fellow will join the X-ray sources group, that is focused on development and applications of laser-driven X-ray sources. and that is working to find solutions to different challenges in the field of X-ray photonics and laser plasma. The key research infrastructure and equipment of this research group include high-power femtosecond lasers systems, namely 100 mJ, 1 kHz OPCPA system, and 30 J, 10 Hz Ti:sapphire system, vacuum interaction chambers and various kinds of diagnostics.
The fellow may also liaise with international collaborators, e.g. LOA, ENSTA PARIS-TECH through international secondments or have the opportunity to carry out secondments in the non-academic sector, in cooperation with our industrial partners, e.g. Rigaku Innovative Technologies.
Given the main focus of our research group, the expected outputs of the fellowship are high-level scientific publications / applied research outputs such as patent applications, market validations, new collaboration with industry, or collaborative research projects.
Pavel Bakule
Pavel Bakule
Since my early student years my interest has always been in pulsed solid state lasers and in engineering of novel and complex laser systems for physics experiments. I received my DPhil in Atomic and Laser Physics from the University of Oxford in 1998, and after that I worked for over 11 years on muonium spectroscopy and on low energy muon generation for which I was always developing new high energy pulse lasers as part of a RIKEN Japanese group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the United Kingdom. Since 2011 I have been developing the world’s most intense lasers and their related technologies at ELI Beamlines facility where I am the Deputy Head of the Department of Laser Systems and Head of Department of Technology Infrastructure and Instrumentation Services.
I want to continue working on a mix of research and engineering. There is still a lot of challenging work to be done on further development and upgrades of the ELI Beamlines.
About the position
As Postdoctoral fellow you would join the Department of laser systems of ELI ERIC at ELI Beamlines facility located in Dolní Břežany near Prague. The department has a staff of nearly 50 people and you would be part of an international team of experts developing the world’s most intense lasers. All of the lasers being developed at the facility are state-of-the-art, high repetition rate femtosecond lasers with peak pulse power ranging from 5 TW to 10 PW(!) and pulse repetition rate ranging from 1 kHz to 1 shot per minute. The with the exception of the 10 PW laser, all of the lasers are diode pumped (with the largest diode arrays having combined peak power of 2.4 MW) and use solid state amplifiers capable of operation at high average power. There are four main laser systems, with complementary output parameters and using different amplifier technology lasers. Two lower energy high average power systems are based on OPCPA, the 1PW system on Ti:sapphire and 10PW system on novel liquid cooled, large aperture Nd:glass amplifiers. The large scale high intensity parts of the lasers systems are operated in vacuum and and the lasers are required to operate with high reliability for user experiments. To be able to do this the scientists are supported by a team of engineers being able design and manufacture large and complex optomechanics, vacuum systems and advanced control and safety systems. As we are trying to push the boundaries of the available technologies there are always multiple ongoing research and development projects on the whole range of laser physics topics. There are also ample opportunities to interact and collaborate with our experimental teams using other lasers for XUV generation, pulsed x-ray generation, plasma physics, laser wakefield acceleration of electrons etc.
ELI ERIC offers work in truly international environment with scientific and technical staff from over 30 countries using English as the main working language.
Fellows
Pavel Bláha
Pavel Bláha
I spent over 6 years in the Laboratory of Radiation Biology at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, where I studied the effects of heavily charged particles on mammalian cells, simulating conditions that cells would be exposed to during space travels. This was followed by a postdoctoral stay at the University of Naples Federico II and the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Naples, Italy, studying Proton Boron Capture Therapy modification as a method to increase the efficacy of proton therapy and the effects of very high dose rates. I was strongly motivated to apply for a MERIT fellowship to continue my research of ultra-high dose rate protons and their biological effects in my home country and enhance my career by performing excellent research that could have a real impact.
My project focuses on laser-accelerated protons and their potential future use in cancer treatment. In theory, it could help to pave the way for proton treatment to become more widely available which would benefit the patients significantly.
I hope the MERIT fellowship will improve my skills in radiation biology, receive additional training in the acceleration of particles, and learn about new fields such as laser physics. With some luck, such experience will open the prospects for my own research group in the Czech Republic.