The U.S. Department of Energy announced $18 million in funding for LaserNetUS, a network of 10 high-intensity laser facilities at national laboratories and universities in the United States and Canada. The initiative, established in 2018, is intended to accelerate U.S. research in the field of high-energy-density plasma science by expanding the use of specialized laser facilities vital to study.

The planned funding totals $18 million over three years, with $6.8 million for fiscal year 2020, and outyear funding contingent on congressional appropriations. Of the three-year total, $17 million will be devoted to funding facility operations, with $1 million providing user support, such as travel expenses.

As part of the LaserNetUS network, the 10 participating institutions — six U.S. universities, three DOE national laboratories, and a Canadian national research institute — agree to common application and peer-review practices to expand and improve access by scientists to the high-intensity lasers.

In its first year of operations, LaserNetUS awarded beamtime for 40 user experiments to researchers from 25 institutions. More than 200 scientists, including 100 students and postdocs, have participated thus far.

The participating institutions are Colorado State University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, SLAC National Laboratory, The Ohio State University, University of Michigan, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Rochester, and University of Texas at Austin.