...Japan fires world's most powerful laser to produce... 1,000 times the planet's power consumption

dailymail.co.uk ^ | By Ellie Zolfagharifard

[BenLurkin]

Japan claims to have fired the most powerful laser ever created.

Researchers in Osaka were able to produce a 2-petawatt laser beam using a device known as the Laser for Fast Ignition Experiment (LFEX).

The power of the 'Death Star'-like beam is equivalent to 1,000 times the world's total electricity consumption, the scientists claim. While it produced a huge amount of power, the energy required for the beam itself is equivalent to that needed to power a microwave for two seconds.

The team were able to produce such a high output from low energy by only firing the laser beam for 1 pico-second, or a trillionth of a second.

[rikkir]

OK, so the have really, really great eyesight also. :)

[logitech]

I once saw a UFO shoot a laser beam into Elvis’ grave.

W.W.

[Rebelbase]

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in Japanese."

[catnipman]

“The team were able to produce such a high output from low energy by only firing the laser beam for 1 pico-second, or a trillionth of a second.”

I wonder if that would kill a mosquito? Possibly, since the total energy input is less than what it would take to power a microwave oven for two seconds, and so the output energy would be some percent less than that. The question is how dispersed was that energy during that trillionth of a second, that is, how wide was the beam diameter?

[xp38]

Yottawatt?

[xp38]

[pepsi_junkie]

My guess is that they have a large bank of ultra-capacitors which you can now get at 300 farads each, about the size of a soda can. So lots of stored charge. When ready to use it, ZAP! But it probably takes a while to build up the charge so the duty cycle of this laser would be very poor.

[SampleMan]

Hah! Don’t know if that was me or spellcheck.