High Power Laser Science and Engineering (HPL) invites original high-quality manuscripts to the special issue on Extreme Optics for Next Generation Ultrahigh Intensity Lasers, related to invited presentation at the Extreme Optics Workshop, Romania, June 2026.

Fundamental modeling, design, fabrication, and testing of high damage threshold optics for high power high intensity lasers have made significant progress over the last two decades. With growing demand for building high intensity high repetition rate lasers in the world for various applications for laser based particle accelerators, secondary sources for wide ranging applications like cancer therapy to nuclear fusion power generation, a large number of groups are investigating various aspects of optical technology: from understanding of the fundamental damage physics at a deeper level using new theoretical, computational and experimental frameworks, coating technology and new materials systems to “damage-less” plasma optics, to address the challenges of improving existing optical technology to meet the needs of the high power super-intense lasers of next generation.

The special issue is to highlight the cutting-edge developments of various aspects of Extreme Optics, from fundamental understanding of the damage mechanisms using new degrees of freedom in theory, computation and experimental techniques, developing new materials systems for high damage threshold optics, while adding more diagnostic techniques to expand our understanding to achieve a great leap forward in optical performance needed for building our next generation lasers with peak performance and reliability.

The topics invited for inclusion are, but not limited to:

• Fundamental theoretical and computational framework
  
• Petawatt and Exawatt Class optics
• Developing high damage threshold optics
• Plasma optics
• Nanolaminates for high power laser optics coating
• Pulse compression diffraction gratings
• Optics for Laser Fusion technologies
• Optics development at large facilities

Guest Editors:

Enam Chowdhury, Ohio State University (OSU), USA 

Ioan Dancus, ELI-NP, Romania 

Marco Jupe, Laser Center Hannover (LZH), Leibniz University Hannover, Germany

Jitsuno Takahisa, ELI-NP, Romania 

Daniel Ursescu, ELI-NP, Romania 

Gabriel Bleutu, ELI-NP, Romania 

Vladimir Pervak, Ultrafast Innovation, Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU), Germany

Daniel Kramer, ELI Beamlines, Czech Republic

Mikami Takuya, Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Okamoto Optics Inc., Japan

Subhendu Kahaly,  ELI-ALPS, Hungary

Meiping Zhu, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM), CAS, China

Submission deadline: 30 November 2026

Manuscripts should be submitted via the online submission system at: http://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/clp-hpl. Please select “Special Issue on Extreme Optics for Next Generation Ultrahigh Intensity Lasers” from the drop-down menu under "Manuscript Type" when submitting manuscript.

HPL is an open access journal co-published by Chinese Laser Press and Cambridge University Press. It seeks to uncover the underlying science and engineering in the fields of high energy density physics, high power lasers, advanced laser technology and applications, and laser components. Articles in HPLSE are freely available to all readers worldwide via journals.cambridge.org/hpl & researching.cn/hpl.