Laser Blast Makes Regular Light Bulbs Super-Efficient

guruevi writes with news that a process using an ultra-powerful laser can crank up the efficiency of everyday incandescent light bulbs. Using the same laser process covered several years ago, the tungsten filament has an array of nano- and micro-scale structures formed on the surface making the resulting light as bright as a 100-watt bulb while consuming less electricity than a 60-watt bulb and remaining much cheaper to produce. "The key to creating the super-filament is an ultra-brief, ultra-intense beam of light called a femtosecond laser pulse. The laser burst lasts only a few quadrillionths of a second. To get a grasp of that kind of speed, consider that a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years. During its brief burst, Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire grid of North America onto a spot the size of a needle point. That intense blast forces the surface of the metal to form nanostructures and microstructures that dramatically alter how efficiently light can radiate from the filament."

Comments

Super Efficient?

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire grid of North America onto a spot the size of a needle point.

So, by only using as much power as the entire grid of North America, we can make a "less than 60 watt" bulb as bright as a 100 watt bulb? Perhaps it operates more efficiently, but it doesn't sound like it is so efficient to produce. Unless I'm misunderstanding or misrepresenting the verbiage from the summary.

Just use all the Electricity up front.

[Malluck]

(29,000 terawatt hours = total power used in 2005 by US) / (1 femtosecond) = 1.04400 × 10^35 watts (US useage per femtosecond)

If this much juice is used to make the filiment, how is this more efficient?

Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs

[MightyMartian]

Whatever they're inefficiencies, they certainly are not the polluters that CFLs are. I'd sooner have shitty energy inefficiency and not be dumping even more mercury into the environment.

Um.. efficient?

[purpleraison]

Is it just me, or does the phrase "During its brief burst, Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire grid of North America onto a spot the size of a needle point" seem a little inefficient for making a single light bulb?