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Scientists Create World's First Atomic X-Ray Laser
New submitter newmission33 writes "Government researchers have created the fastest, purest X-ray laser pulses ever achieved, and have fulfilled a 1967 prediction that an atomic scale X-ray laser could be made in the same manner as visible-light lasers, according to a statement released Wednesday. Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory used the Linac Coherent Light Source to aim a powerful X-ray source beam, a billion times brighter than any previous source, at a capsule of neon gas and triggered an 'avalanche' of X-ray emissions to become the world's first 'atomic X-ray laser.'"
Throw in a "jet" and "rocket" and I think we'll be all set.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Analyze those bacteria!
I don't mean if this is useful or not, the article clearly states how it is.
I mean, the pump laser, the one that excites the lasing medium (in this case neon gas). Does it have to be x-ray?
Would a coherent beam of some other, more easily produced frequency, or even a highly charged cathode beam, be sufficient to induce the xray emission cascade as well?
Sounds way more impressive than it probably actually is.
They weren't x-rays they were z-rays but z is just as good as x in fact better.
...but I want one!
"atomic"... Spooky.
"The Crossbow Project. There's No Defense Like a Good Offense."
Chorus: A.N.N.A. rules!
Peter: 'Cause I kick all the bad guys in their jewels!
Chorus: A.N.N.A. won!
Peter: Thanks to my gamma ray atomic gun
Chorus: Dance and shout, he's the world's greatest ninja there's no doubt
Peter: Though they try to defeat me, they can all just freakin' eat me
Brian: 'Cause he blew all of us away
Peter (and Chorus): On the planet of Siam there's no one as tough as I am, just as surely as Paul Lynde was gay!
http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/A.N.N.A._Rules
I bet this could be used to make a death ray.
of reading Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and wishing I could find an abandoned museum with a freakin' x-ray laser in it.
But will it blend?
I wouldn't call this laser "the same manner as visible-light lasers" really, it lacks one of the fundamental features of a normal laser - self amplification via feedback from mirrors.
It sounds like this could be the _basis_ for a laser, as a pump source causes superluminescence, but without feedback it won't be particularly directional.
Perhaps if it can be triggered to start the avalanche at one end a directional burst could be achieved though, kind of like a nitrogen laser.
Where are the atomic-level sharks with atomic-level lasers attached to their heads?
Sig this!
This will probably be handheld.
Where I can get a few fricken sharks?
Just saying...
the first use I thought for such a device was to make home-size non-Uranium nuclear reactors (Thorium, Hafnium) a practical reality.
My guess is the x-rays travel at 299,792,458 m/s - just like every other photon.
Perhaps the poster's meaning is "pulse with the shortest duration"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur
(when head-mounted on shark, you don't get your shark back)
With fabs already using DeepUV lasers and phase-shifting masks, the ability to do x-ray pulses would seem to me (I am not a phsyicist) to make it possibly to use for wafer lithography to produce much smaller chip geometries than we have today. A pulse laser would make it much easier to do that without damaging the chip (since x-rays are very freaking energetic indeed). So Moore's Law might get a new lease on life, assuming that this technology is capable of being commercialized.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Cool, we will be ready to take on the Fithp when they attack us
I would like to point out that the neon is not actually a gain medium. They lose an enormous amount of power in this process; however, they get a much tighter distribution of frequencies and are able to more precisely control the pulses. The source of radiation for this is a laser. It's a free electron laser; until now, nobody was ever able to get any atomic medium to meet lasing conditions.
The reason this is is interesting is that as laser frequency increases (and thus photon energy) it becomes extraordinarily difficult to maintain a population inversion. Very cool stuff.
Vault-Tec stock is up!
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
For the silicon lithographic process, the X-rays pulses are not sufficient. This process requires longer exposition of the light (as the visible irradiation, overall ultraviolet irradiation) that is generally continuous, but the X-rays are simply discontinous pulses of excessive waste of energies!.
Don't think that it's an easy solved solution.
The laser (e.g. red or green) has a directional canyon of photons as the ruby, and it's optimized. But the X-rays can't, but when they try, almost of the angles are wasted unoptimizely for imitating the laser-like of the X-rays unless that the material engineers discover new materials for X-rays that synchronize the randomity of the irradiations to statistical unidirectional vectors. Generally, these new materials to be discovered in near future should be as crystaline for the frequencies of the light or mainly of X-rays.
JCPM: don't waste resources, and don't use these experiments for evil purposes.
WARNING: Do not look into the atomic x-ray laser with remaining head.
I'm from Arkansas. I was really hoping it could be used to make a Meth-Ray.
since E=h*v, the energy output is amazing- a true death ray - you could fry any missile in flight. what's the name of those russian things the iraqis are shooting at israel? Actually, Edward teller conceived an interesting design for an xray laser. A thermonuclear weapon i space encased by a porcupine shell of tungsten rods. The rods are aimed at their targts an when the thermonuclear weapon is detonated, the gamma rays shoot down the tungsten rods and xrays are generated. presto, goldfinger would be jealous. of course there is the little problem of clean up afterwards...
Hi honey how was your day? OH my god why are you GLOWING in the dark?
There's a similar project currently being built in Hamburg, Germany, the European XFEL. Compared to the LCLS, it will have 8 times the maximum, 600 times the average brilliance, up to 3 times smaller wavelength, and/or 200 times the flash rate.
http://www.xfel.eu/overview/in_brief
http://www.xfel.eu/overview/in_comparison
And that is to have sharks with frickin' X-Ray laser beams attached to their heads!
Now we just need impeller drive, few big spaceships, and David Weber's Honorverse becomes reality.
Bolt it onto my rocket ship! We'll show those foul martians you don't mess with earth!
Perhaps this has applications for silicon photolithography?
The semiconductor industry is already using ultraviolet because the minimum feature size created by photolithography is limited by the wavelength of the light. X-rays have a wavelength of about 1 nanometer (< 5 Si atoms). That should be small enough to push silicon semiconductors to their ultimate limit.
While probably not the only sci-fi author to abuse the term, he has to get a tingle out of seeing the beginnings of his bomb-pumped x-ray laser head missiles, as abused frequently in his Honor Harrington series.
Now if we could just get to the superdense magnetic bottles for the fusion reactors and the grav lensing please... oh, and someone figure out how to create impeller bands.
Shouldn't this be called a "maser" since it's not emitting light? Bet the secret squirrels made this to peer through walls from miles away
I wonder if something like this could replace conventional lasers in an inertial fusion application.
so now we can have holographic xrays of Natalie Portman to masturbate to?
The most evil Atomic X-ray Laserinator in the Tri-State Area!
Baseless self confidence kills more people each year than bathtubs.
Crap.... hide all sharks cause if they get their hands on this technology, were fucked.
Why should black holes have all the fun?
MIT prof Peter Hagelstein made one in the 1980s while working for energy labs. This fell into the class of "3rd generation nuclear weapons" which included very customized radiation outputs. And this excited Teller and Reagan into the "Star Wars" defense shield program. I dont think that program is dead yet, but highly morphed.
To cookoff munitions inside a tank?