The first demonstration of laser action in ruby was made in 1960 by T. H. Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories, USA. Many laboratories worldwide began the search for lasers using different materials, operating at different wavelengths. In the UK, academia, industry and the central laboratories took up the challenge from the earliest days to develop these systems for a broad range of applications. This historical review looks at the contribution the UK has made to the advancement of the technology, the development of systems and components and their exploitation over the last 60 years.

The Orion facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in the United Kingdom has the capability to operate one of its two 500 J, 500 fs short-pulse petawatt beams at the second harmonic, the principal reason being to increase the temporal contrast of the pulse on target. This is achieved post-compression, using 3 mm thick type-1 potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals. Since the beam diameter of the compressed pulse is mm, it is impractical to achieve this over the full aperture due to the unavailability of the large aperture crystals. Frequency doubling was originally achieved on Orion using a circular sub-aperture of 300 mm diameter. The reduction in aperture limited the output energy to 100 J. The second-harmonic capability has been upgraded by taking two square 300 mm 300 mm sub-apertures from the beam and combining them at focus using a single paraboloidal mirror, thus creating a 200 J, 500 fs, i.e., 400 TW facility at the second harmonic.

The use of ultra-high intensity laser beams to achieve extreme material states in the laboratory has become almost routine with the development of the petawatt laser. Petawatt class lasers have been constructed for specific research activities, including particle acceleration, inertial confinement fusion and radiation therapy, and for secondary source generation (x-rays, electrons, protons, neutrons and ions). They are also now routinely coupled, and synchronized, to other large scale facilities including megajoule scale lasers, ion and electron accelerators, x-ray sources and z-pinches. The authors of this paper have tried to compile a comprehensive overview of the current status of petawatt class lasers worldwide. The definition of ‘petawatt class’ in this context is a laser that delivers >200 TW.