Oxford Centre for High Energy Density Science (OxCHEDS)

See below the latest updates from the Oxford Centre for High Energy Density Science.

Group highlight

22 April 2026

Dr Robin Timmis wins Culham Thesis Prize 2026

Dr Robin Timmis from the Oxford Centre for High Energy Density Science (OxCHEDS) has won this year's Culham Thesis Prize.

Research highlight (HEDLine)

11 May 2026

A fifty-part harmony: how to create light intense enough to break the vacuum

An international team of physicists demonstrates for the first time a practical route to dramatically boosting the intensity of high-power laser light.

The Oxford Centre for High Energy Density Science (OxCHEDS) brings together research groups from across the Atomic and Laser Physics subdepartment (and beyond) with an interest in the study of matter under extreme temperature and pressure conditions.

Within Oxford, the centre is composed of the following seven academics and their respective groups:

• Professor Justin Wark (Director of OxCHEDS)
• Doctor Archie Bott
• Professor Gianluca Gregori
• Professor Simon Hooker
• Professor Peter Norreys
• Professor Steve Rose
• Professor Sam Vinko

The OxCHEDS consortium also includes a number of national partners (in particular, AWE Aldermaston) in addition to a network of international collaborators.

At OxCHEDS, we study the behaviour of matter at the kinds of extraordinary temperatures and pressures usually encountered only in planetary or stellar interiors. With the aid of high-power lasers, we are able to generate exceptionally hot and dense matter (often found in the plasma state) in the laboratory, and to examine it, often using ultrafast x-ray scattering techniques made possible by fourth-generation light sources. This allows us to study matter under stellar-core or even supernova-explosion-like conditions, to develop novel plasma accelerators, to ignite controlled nuclear fusion reactions, to compress solid matter to incredible densities, and to explore exotic high-field physics that manifests only at exceptionally high energy densities.

HEDLines showcases interesting and important high-energy-density research carried out within OxCHEDS and its partner research groups. Each HEDLine summarises the research undertaken in 500 words or fewer. Research areas covered include plasma accelerators, laboratory astrophysics, inertial confinement fusion, dynamic compression, and high-field physics.

Want to know what OxCHEDS is up to? Then look no further!