Incredible Power of Light Exhibition

In April, Strathclyde Department of Physics ran a month-long power of light exhibition at the Scottish Parliament, part of the International Year of Light festival.

The International Year of Light is a celebration of light, its technologies and applications, and of the thriving industries that have become part of our lives.

National coverage

The exhibit, presented in partnership by the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC), Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Scottish Parliament ran every day for the month of April, with researchers from many related disciplines from universities all over Scotland coming along to play their part.

The launch of the event included a live radio interview with Dr Rachel Dance on Good Morning Scotland, followed by a meeting with Tricia Marwick MSP and Presiding Officer to talk about the exhibit and to take part in the general media launch, which was attended by more than 13 MSPs.

Staggering numbers

The exhibition centrepiece was an immersive mock-up of part of the Vulcan laser facility based at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, which supports research at universities across the UK. This laser produces powerful pulses of light containing 600J of energy, delivered in less than a single picosecond, to an area smaller than the end of a human hair. This results in very high irradiances (of c.10^20 W/cm^2), equivalent to over 10,000 times the output of the entire UK national grid for this very short time.

The work of the Ultra Intense Laser Plasmas group led by Professor Paul McKenna in the Department of Physics uses the Vulcan facility to investigate the acceleration of ions and protons, the transport of relativistic electrons in dense plasma and fundamental relativistic laser-plasma interaction physics.

Life as a scientist

Organisers estimate that there were just over 30,500 visitors in the month-long event.

During the exhibit, several Strathclyde PhD students had the opportunity to go along and talk to the general public about what it’s like to work in this facility, what life as a scientist is like day-to-day, and in some more inquisitive cases, justify their own research!

It also featured interactive workshops, evening talks and walk-in access to the exhibit all day, every day.

The exhibit is now off to Cardiff, continuing on its UK tour, but is returning to Dundee in November this year.