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University of Rochester takes the wraps off major expansion of Laboratory for Laser Energetics

WXXI News | By Randy Gorbman

Published June 2, 2024 at 9:38 AM EDT

The University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics' (LLE) $42 million, 66,000-square-foot office and lab building expansion is pictured shortly after completion May 2, 2024. The expansion directly connects to LLE’s existing building on East River Road in Brighton, New York. The new three-floor building houses lab and office space for approximately 110 scientists and LLE personnel and includes a class 1000 target fabrication lab and thin film coating lab, a laser computing facility, and several other wet lab and general lab spaces. The largest lab space will house the AMICA laser system, a state-of-the-art, high-energy, long-pulse laser that scientists at the LLE are assembling for Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Matter at Extreme Condition Upgrade (MEC-U). // photo by J. Adam Fenster / University of Rochester.

Officials at the University of Rochester are taking the wraps off a major expansion of its laser lab.

UR’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) has just completed construction of a $46 million expansion.

The new three-story building provides additional laboratory space and will enable the construction of a new laser system.

The laser lab does work that helps bolster national security efforts as well as continue research into the fusion process.

The Director of the lab, Chris Deeney, said there’s a natural tie-in between work going on at the laser lab and some local optics companies, which is a key part of the high-tech landscape in Rochester.

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“(We have) such a legacy in optics, and now in lasers and optics and so we’re hoping to attract even more business into the area and really strengthen the ecosystem in lasers and optics in Rochester; we’re well placed to do it,” said Deeney.

Deeney said that among the applications for the research they are doing at the LLE is technology that could help defend US interests in the skies and in outer space.

“There’s lots of areas where laser technology is being used for self-directed energy, can you defeat missiles, rockets, can you do more advanced imaging? etc.”

The Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the U of R began operation in the 1970s; it currently has about 450 people working there including research scientists and students. He said that number has grown by about 100 people over the last three years.