U of MI Produces Strongest Laser Ever

eldavojohn writes "Weighing in at a mere 20 billion trillion watts per square centimeter and containing a measly 300 terawatts of power, the University of Michigan has broken a record with a 1.3-micron speck wide laser. It's about two orders of magnitude higher than any other laser in the world and can perform for 30 femtoseconds once every ten seconds — some of the researchers speculate it is the most powerful laser in the universe. 'If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of a new laser beam made in a University of Michigan laboratory ... To achieve this beam, the research team added another amplifier to the HERCULES laser system, which previously operated at 50 terawatts. HERCULES is a titanium-sapphire laser that takes up several rooms at U-M's Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. Light fed into it bounces like a pinball off a series of mirrors and other optical elements. It gets stretched, energized, squeezed and focused along the way.'" And ... cue the evil chortling.

Comments

Not so cool

[KiloByte]

And, pray tell, what would a mere 9 joules pulse accomplish anything from a B1-B?

That "300 terawatts" is nothing if you take into account how short the beam lasts.

Re:Not so cool

[Charcharodon]

I make a movie reference and all I get is a physics Nazi. Well at least the first reply got it.

Really what did I expect, 3/4 of the people here weren't even born yet or were still shitting their diapers when Real Genius came out.

I guess I should have wasted "first post" on something obvious like "Sharks with frikin' laser beams attached to their heads"

If you've never seen the movie, your ability to post on /. is hereby suspsended until you do.

Re:Not so cool

[Ceriel Nosforit]

I make a movie reference and all I get is a physics Nazi. Welcome to Slashdot. :)

Re:Not so cool

[rkcth]

582 films, in 5 years, you post on slashdot and you don't consider real genius to be one of the movies you should see? You're clearly a geek, get the movie, you'll enjoy it and you'll get more jokes. It's easily available on netflix. There are only a handful of must-see geek movies, this is high on that list.

Most powerful laser in the universe?

[LS]

I guess these researchers don't consider the possibility that there may be advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Perhaps they should say the KNOWN universe

LS

Re:Yes but...

[JohnSearle]

This development is clearly useless until the system is miniturised to the point it can be mounted on a shark.

You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks?

- John

Re:Safety first

[mythosaz]

WARNING: Do not stare into LASER with remaining eye.

http://www.leftmind.net/safety/laser.pdf

Re:Yes but...

[Johnno74]

Nice, I like it.

You've obviously done a lot more thinking about the whole Dr-Evil thing than me!

Ah, a "high cinema" snob.

[Valdrax]

Ah. I see your problem. You're a "High Cinema" snob who's too "good" for an 80's popcorn classic, and you're too stubborn to admit that you were really just piggy-backing on the first post to elevate the attention to your post like some sort of forum remora once someone pointed out your ignorance of the joke.

Congratulations. You have now made a fool of yourself in front of a crowd by trying to prove that you're better than them for being ignorant of "low cinema." Few things are more sad than a defense of ignorance. Also, giving your autobiography in response to questions about your taste on the internet just shows your own insecurity. Lurk more.