Colorado State University is building one of the nation’s most powerful laser research facilities on its Foothills Campus. The Advanced Technology Lasers for Applications and Science Facility, known as ATLAS, will open in 2026. Construction started in October 2024.
Cutting-edge laser research at CSU for 40 years
The building is part of a 40-year partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fusion Energy Sciences Program in the Office of Science and a new strategic collaboration with industry leader Marvel Fusion.
CSU’s leadership in this area is driven largely by University Distinguished Professors Jorge Rocca and Carmen Menoni who are part of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Rocca, who is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, also holds a position in the Department of Physics, and Menoni in the Department of Chemistry.
Menoni also serves as director of RISE, a national Inertial Fusion Science and Technology hub that is focused on advancing inertial fusion energy.
“As a top institution recognized both for research and for sustainability, CSU is a fitting home for this facility. We have been a leader in laser research for decades, and our faculty are advancing critical technologies. This new facility will house one of the most powerful lasers in the world and establishes CSU as a nexus for laser fusion research.”
Amy Parsons
President, Colorado State University
Live Construction Webcam
CSU ATLAS - View 2 (H) (Fort Collins, CO)
ATLAS in the News
- Electrical and Computer Engineering alumnus returns to CSU as associate professor at ATLAS
- CSU researchers capture first laser-driven, high-resolution CT scans of dense objects
- CSU and Marvel Fusion to build groundbreaking $150M laser facility through public-private partnership
- CSU to lead DOE-funded multi-institution hub to advance laser-driven fusion energy
Myriad of possibilities for laser research
ATLAS researchers will investigate laser-driven fusion as a viable clean energy source. Beyond fusion and basic science research, the building will also support interdisciplinary work into topics like medicine where lasers could be used to deposit energy for localized tumor treatment.
CSU boasts one of the few high-power, ultrashort pulse lasers in the world capable of reproducing the process of fusion. Researchers will leverage CSU’s unique technology to provide the knowledge needed to develop this crucial carbon-free energy source.
Beyond laser-driven fusion for clean energy, lasers are central to the development of innovative technologies for basic research, advanced manufacturing, defense, medicine, and more.
This is an exciting opportunity for laser-based science, a dream facility for discovery and advanced technology development with great potential for societal impact.
Jorge Rocca
Colorado State University Distinguished Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics
About CSU Laser Research
Carmen Menoni
University Distinguished Professor, director of the RISE hub and international role model for women in science and engineering.
Carmen Menoni is a University Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering who holds appointments in the Department of Chemistry and School of Biomedical Engineering. She received her B.S. in physics from the University of Rosario and Ph.D. in physics from Colorado State University.
As an expert in laser technologies, Menoni’s research investigates transparent dielectric materials that advance state-of-the-art interference coatings for ultra-high intensity lasers with applications in inertial fusion energy and gravitational wave detectors.
Menoni serves as director of the Inertial Fusion Energy hub, RISE, supported by the DoE IFE STAR Program, Fusion Energy Science. The RISE hub – a partnership between five universities, three national and federal labs, and three industrial members – provides the framework to accelerate inertial fusion energy technologies and train the workforce that will support a laser fusion demonstrator.
Menoni is the 2024 recipient of the Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize, Willis Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics (2024), and IEEE Women in Photonics Excellence Award (2023).
She is Fellow of Optica, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and SPIE.
Menoni has served the optics and photonics community through her participation in prominent editorial and governing boards. She was President of the IEEE Photonics Society in 2020-2021. Menoni is co-founder and president of XUV Lasers, a spin-off from CSU that commercializes laser technologies.
Jorge Rocca
University Distinguished Professor, member of the National Academy of Engineering, and inventor of ALEPH, one of the most powerful lasers in the world housed at CSU.
Jorge Rocca is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Physics. He received his B.S. in physics from the University of Rosario and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Colorado State University. His research focuses on the physics and development of compact soft-ray lasers and their applications, the development of high-power lasers, and the study of high intensity laser-matter interactions. In all, he has published more than 300 peer-reviewed journal articles on these topics.
Rocca was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2024. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Physical Society and OPTICA – previously known as the Optical Society of America. Early in his career he was selected as a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator. He also received the Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science from the APS and the Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics. In 2020, Rocca was the first-ever CSU faculty member to receive the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Defense to conduct basic research in ultra-high field nanophotonics.
Rocca also served as the first elected chair of LaserNetUS – a user network of many of the most powerful lasers in North America, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
About Laser Fusion
Fusion energy is a form of power generation that aims to recreate the process that powers the sun by fusing atomic nuclei together.
LaserNetUS
Colorado State University is part of LaserNetUS, a scientific ecosystem established by the U.S. Department of Energy to advance intense ultrafast laser science and applications.
The universe runs on fusion: the release of energy when two atoms collide. Harnessed on earth, fusion could generate unlimited clean energy to power cities and industries.
CSU’s current petawatt-class laser system can generate extreme conditions like those found at the center of stars.
The new laser facility will house a unique cluster of high-power, high-repetition lasers that have the potential to produce, for a brief amount of time, an astounding power of 6 petawatts – that’s about 6,000 times larger than the power produced by all power plants in the United States combined.
A petawatt is a quadrillion watts, equivalent to the power of 10 trillion 100-watt light bulbs.