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World's Newest, Most Powerful Laser Comes Online

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the now-that's-a-hotspot dept.

deglr6328 writes "The OMEGA EP laser at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics was dedicated today at the Robert L. Sproull Center for Ultra High Intensity Laser Research. The new laser, which has been in design since ~2002 will, at 1 kilojoule per 1 picosecond pulse, be the highest energy petawatt-scale laser ever created by far. For a fleeting fraction of a second, it will deliver a beam of infrared light at 1054 nm that is more powerful than the total energy consumption of all human activity on the planet, to a tiny spot the size of the head of a pin. Previous petawatt scale lasers such as the one created at Lawrence Livermore labs in the late '90s and (dismantled in 1999) were capable of only several hundred joules per pulse. The new OMEGA EP laser will be able to manifest power densities sufficient to examine Unruh and Hawking radiation-like phenomena in the laboratory and will have the capability to directly produce nuclear reactions through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration."

3 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. OT : Coincidence? by 4D6963 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is it just a coincidence or does this story have anything to do with the fact that yesterday Google had lasers on its main page (which I assume commemorated to 50 years of the creation of lasers, either that or "first laser!" must be the latest new Internet fad)?

    --
    You just got troll'd!
  2. Re:And once again science reporters gets it all wr by penguin+king · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually (although I hate to reply twice) I've just noticed something in your statement that doesn't sit quite right.

    You've said "POWER output for a picosecond would be greater than the combined POWER consumption of the entire planet"

    I'm not a physicist, but isn't Power Energy per Time, thus Power output for a picosecond is Energy per Time per picosecond? Are you trying to say Energy output for a picosecond (ie 1 kJ)? I think what they are saying is that 1kJ per picosecond (a measure of power) = 10^12 kW (a measure of power.

    I'm just a bit confused about what you're saying :) (not trying to be pedantic, and I apologise if I'm mistaken)

  3. In layman's terms by LM741N · · Score: 2, Interesting

    you take a car battery and discharge all of its energy in a picosecond or less, and for that split second, you are generating as much power as this laser.

    Big deal.