A study of the performance of liquid media for the amplification of electromagnetic radiation is presented. A novel charging-line driven flash-lamp system generating ultra-violet pulses with a 20 ns rise-time, suitable for the excitation of organic liquid lasers that emit in the ultraviolet, is described. The characteristics of a large travelling-wave laser amplifier, using Nd+3:POCl13ZrC14 as the active medium are reported. Multigigawatt/ cm2 power densities were achieved during the amplification of nanosecond duration giant pulses. A denouement of the nonlinear scattering processes that occur under these conditions is given. A comparison is made with other condensed-phase and gas laser media suitable for the production of the very high-power radiation necessary for thermonuclear fusion experiments •