Laser plasma activities in the High Intensity Laser Laboratory (HILL) is based on the home-made short-pulse excimer laser systems. At present the laser gives 15 mJ energy in a 600 fs laser pulse on the 248 nm (UV) wavelength. Simple lens-focusing of the laser beam results in intensity of 5*10 ¹⁵ W/cm². Focusing the diffraction-limited beam with an off-axis parabola mirror to a spot as small as 2mm diameter results a focused intensity of 5*10¹⁷ W/cm² corresponding to electric field strength above 10¹⁰ V/cm. A special feature of the excimer-based system is the high contrast. As it is based on direct amplification (it is not a CPA-system) the only source of prepulse is the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). As it has a long, 15ns pulse duration and it is not focused, its intensity in the focal plane is less than 10⁷ W/cm², thus the contrast is better than 10 ¹⁰. Focusing the high intensity laser radiation onto solid surfaces or into gases, hot plasma of several million degrees temperatures is generated within less than 1 picosecond (10 ^-12 s) duration.

      High intensity plasma experiments are performed in a collaboration between the Department of Experimental Physics of the University of Szeged and the Department of Plasma Physics of the KFKI-Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics