{"id":239988,"date":"2026-06-30T07:20:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/first-of-a-kind-laser-spring-opens-up-new-avenues-for-plasma-control"},"modified":"2026-06-30T07:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:20:20","slug":"first-of-a-kind-laser-spring-opens-up-new-avenues-for-plasma-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/first-of-a-kind-laser-spring-opens-up-new-avenues-for-plasma-control","title":{"rendered":"First-of-a-kind laser spring opens up new avenues for plasma control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/first-of-a-kind-laser-spring-opens-up-new-avenues-for-plasma-control.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When a high-intensity laser interacts with plasma, the charged particles typically oscillate back and forth like waves on the ocean. But what if the laser itself could twist like a whirlpool? Researchers have now demonstrated a rotating, spring-shaped laser pulse, opening new possibilities for fusion energy, particle acceleration, astrophysics and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>In new research <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41566-026-01948-6\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Photonics<\/i>, scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the University of California, Irvine, demonstrated the first high-intensity \u201clight spring\u201d laser.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike conventional laser beams, a light spring rotates around its central axis at a controllable rate. If shone onto a wall, the beam pattern would trace out circles over time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a high-intensity laser interacts with plasma, the charged particles typically oscillate back and forth like waves on the ocean. But what if the laser itself could twist like a whirlpool? Researchers have now demonstrated a rotating, spring-shaped laser pulse, opening new possibilities for fusion energy, particle acceleration, astrophysics and beyond. In new research published [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuclear-energy","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}