The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) is a scientific research facility which is part of the University of Rochester's south campus, located in Brighton, New York.

[8] They invented a method to amplify laser pulses by "chirping" for which they would share the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.

This method disperses a short, broadband pulse of laser light into a temporally longer spectrum of wavelengths.

Chirp pulsed amplification became instrumental in building the National Ignition Facility and the OMEGA EP system.

The Guardian and Scientific American provided simplified summaries of the work of Strickland and Mourou: it "paved the way for the shortest, most intense laser beams ever created".

[12] Initial construction and commissioning of the laser were completed in 1980 under a 21 million USD contract between the University of Rochester and the US Department of Energy.

[15] It hosts four NIF-like laser beams, each capable of delivering up to 1.6 kilojoules of energy, as well as a new target chamber.

The high power of these beams combined with their ability to be independently timed enables integrated fast-ignition experiments, in which the OMEGA laser compresses a spherical target full of fusion fuel and then OMEGA EP drives a beam of electrons into its center, kick-starting thermonuclear burn.