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DIY Laser Pistol Shoot 1MW Blasts

Posted by Soulskill on from the i'll-order-a-dozen dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It doesn't get cooler than this — a German hacker put together a 1MW laser pistol capable of shooting straight through a razor blade with a single pulse. Quoting: 'Fitted with a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser, it fires off a 1 MW blast of infrared light once the capacitors have fully charged. The duration of the laser pulse is somewhere near 100ns, so he was unable to catch it on camera, but its effects are easily visible in whatever medium he has fired upon.'" Update: 03/17 18:22 GMT by T : Too bad; turns out it's "only" 1KW, rather than 1MW. I still want one.

4 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong power by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Informative

    1kW, not 1MW.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  2. Wrong unit by slim · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not all that interesting what the power is, without knowing how long it's applied for. TFA says 100ns.

    1kW * 100ns = 0.0001 joules
    1MW * 100ns = 0.1 joules

    Neither of which is very much energy. Next question: how small an area is that energy applied to? Pretty damned small, I'm assuming, if it's going to punch a hole in a razor blade with that little energy.

  3. It doesn't seem to add up, though by Kupfernigk · · Score: 5, Informative
    1MW for 100ns = 0.1J, roughly equivalent to dropping 100g a distance of 10cm. 1kW for 100ns = 0.1mJ, equivalent to dropping a 1 gramme mass approx. 1mm. I believe the latter could pop a balloon, but it doesn't seem enough to punch through a razor blade. My memory may be faulty, but I seem to recall it takes of the order of magnitude of 10^10 W/sq cm to do that. Focussing the beam to 10^-7 sq. cm would be quite an achievement.

    Perhaps either the original estimate is correct or the pulse duration is much longer, of the order of 100 microseconds.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  4. Re:Awesome! by Card · · Score: 5, Informative
    From Wikipedia:

    Infrared lasers are particularly hazardous, since the body's protective "blink reflex" response is triggered only by visible light. For example, some people exposed to high power Nd:YAG laser emitting invisible 1064 nm radiation, may not feel pain or notice immediate damage to their eyesight. A pop or click noise emanating from the eyeball may be the only indication that retinal damage has occurred i.e. the retina was heated to over 100 C resulting in localized explosive boiling accompanied by the immediate creation of a permanent blind spot.