20世纪80年代中期发展起来的啁啾脉冲放大(CPA)技术与先进的高功率激光技术及优良的激光增益介质相结合把激光峰值输出功率提高了几个数量级,出现了输出拍瓦级(1015 W)皮秒(10-12 s)和飞秒(10-15 s) 脉冲的固体激光装置,聚焦峰值功率密度达到1020～1022 W/cm2。激光与物质相互作用的物理过程中,激光功率密度起主导作用,不同光强对应不同的物理学领域。如此高的激光功率密度能够在实验室中产生前所未有的极端物态条件,即超强电场、超强磁场和超高压强等,从而开创了崭新的强场物理领域,推动了相关学科的交叉融合,形成了多个前沿研究方向,如粒子加速、强辐射源、先进光源、阿秒物理、快点火聚变、超热物质、激光核物理、超快过程诊断、激光天体物理、非线性量子电动力学(QED)等,在材料科学、生命科学和医学等领域中也极具应用价值。

Peak output powers of solid-state laser facilities have tremendously increased by a few orders of magnitude since the middle of last eighties due to the combination of the technique of chirped pulse amplification (CPA), advanced high-power laser technologies and novel laser materials. Petawatt (PW) level laser facilities have been built for picosecond and femtosecond pulses with focused intensities of up to 1020～1022 W/cm2. Laser intensities play dominant roles in understanding the physics of laser-plasma interactions and, therefore, different intensities open different physics areas to study. Such high laser intensities are able to produce extreme conditions: ultraintense electric and magnetic fields, and ultrahigh pressure, leading to the emerging of strong-field physics. A numbrer of multidisciplinary frontiers have been explored, such as particle acceleration, intense radiation source, advanced light source, attosecond physics, fast ignition fusion, superhot matter, nuclear physics, ultrafast proccess diagnosing, laser astrophysics, nonlinear quantum electrodynamics (QED) and so on. Also, there exist invaluable potentials in material, biological and medical applications.