Laser techniques applied to radioactive waste

Radioactive waste is not only generated in nuclear power plants but also other facilities such as hospitals, research centres, or industries. It is classified into three types: very low-level waste, low and intermediate-level waste, and high-level waste.

In Spain, the high-level radioactive waste generated accounts for less than one-thousandth of all toxic and hazardous waste. It is perfectly monitored, controlled, and managed by a public company created for this purpose, Empresa Nacional de Residuos Radiactivos (Enresa). At present, there is a technical solution for the temporary storage, reuse, and disposal of irradiated fuel.

Laser techniques are known for one of their most popular uses, which is their medical application to correct myopia, but their versatility is so diverse and wide-ranging that they could be applied in many other disciplines.

The Nobel laureate in physics, Gérard Mourou, for his research in the field of laser physics, is investigating ways to shorten the life of radioactive waste.

The technique, created by Mourou and the Canadian Donna Strickland, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, is known as CPA and consists of taking an ultra-short laser pulse, lengthening it in time, amplifying it and compressing it again, which multiplies its intensity considerably.

There is already experience with this type of laser, but more and more applications are being discovered, as Gérard Mourou acknowledges, pointing out that hundreds of laboratories are working with CPA, citing the Spanish Pulsed Laser Centre in Salamanca in particular.

The French scientist is also working to ‘try to reduce the size of the laser even further’, with the ‘ambition’ to create particle accelerators with a circumference of a few tens of centimetres, compared to the 27-kilometre diameter of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) facility.