500 Trillion Watt Laser Breaks Records

Hevva

Shipwrecked, comatose, newsie
Aug 2, 2011
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500 Trillion Watt Laser Breaks Records



Good news for fusion power is bad news for Alderaan.

Whether their gigantic laser [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117069-Dr-Evils-Laser-Shark-Plan-Finally-Comes-to-Fruition] that delivered over 500 trillion (500 terawatts) of power, 100 times more than any other laser tested to date.

By firing 192 small lasers simultaneously, the NIF team was able to cram the 500 terawatts into one Death Star-esque beam. For reference, 500 terawatts is about 1000 times as much power as the entire United States is using at any given moment.

In good news for fans of fusion power [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power] studies, the extreme levels of energy in the beam also meant that it, for a split second, created conditions not dissimilar from those we find in the hearts of burning stars.

"The 500 terawatt shot is an extraordinary accomplishment by the NIF team, creating unprecedented conditions in the laboratory that hitherto only existed deep in stellar interiors," commented Richard Petrasso, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Edward Moses, director of the NIF, is predictably pleased with the result of the test. "NIF is becoming everything scientists planned when it was conceived over two decades ago," he said. "It is fully operational, and scientists are taking important steps toward achieving ignition and providing experimental access to user communities for national security, basic science and the quest for clean fusion energy."

The next step for the NIF and its laser will be to further test its possible applications in the field of fusion energy research. When fired, the laser was focussed on a pea-sized capsule; were that capsule loaded with the right kind of materials, a blast from the laser could kick off a fusion process by means of something called inertial confinement fusion (where the laser's power would make the capsule's surface explode outward, sending energy inward with enough force to compress the capsule's innards into a fusion reaction). If the NIF pulls that off, expect to hear about it in a big, big way. If not, well, the lab has the world's most powerful laser. Either way, let's be cool to them, yeah?


Source: Innovation Daily/Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/laser-record-national-ignition-facility-beam_n_1688757.html?utm_hp_ref=technology&ir=Technology]

Image: National Ignition Facility [https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/about.php]

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korandder

Astronoob
Nov 25, 2009
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The combined power of the 192 lasers is 500 terawatts.

A watt is a unit of power not a unit of energy. Power is the rate at which energy is used.
 

Hevva

Shipwrecked, comatose, newsie
Aug 2, 2011
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korandder said:
The combined power of the 192 lasers is 500 terawatts.

A watt is a unit of power not a unit of energy. Power is the rate at which energy is used.
Ah, sorry. Updated. Cheers :)
 

mfeff

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Nov 8, 2010
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I looked at the design of this particular installation some years ago. The issue they were having was getting the lasers, through the arrays, all on the objective within a reasonable tolerance with respect to time. It's interesting to see that they finally got a hit after this many years. The trouble with the base design of the installation is that I couldn't discern "how" they planned to actually harness the heat that would be generated in the reaction.

Ultimately I concluded, as a provisional hypothesis, that the goal was not the creation of a power plant... but the development of a munition. Weee... go science...

edit... little info to support meh' claim...

Despite the many millions of dollars spent by the U.S. between 1952 and 1992 to produce a pure fusion weapon, no measurable success was ever achieved. In 1998, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a restricted data declassification decision stating that even if the DOE made a substantial investment in the past to develop a pure fusion weapon, "the U.S. Is not known to have and is not developing a pure fusion weapon and no credible design for a pure fusion weapon resulted from the DOE investment". The power densities needed to ignite a fusion reaction still seem attainable only with the aid of a fission explosion, or with large apparatus such as powerful lasers like those at the National Ignition Facility, the Sandia Z-pinch machine, or various magnetic tokamaks. Regardless of any claimed advantages of pure fusion weapons, building those weapons does not appear to be feasible using currently available technologies and many have expressed concern that pure fusion weapons research and development would subvert the intent of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
 

Quaxar

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Sep 21, 2009
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I wonder if you could make that portable and attach it to the Hubble telescope...
 

cerebus23

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May 16, 2010
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no no clearly we need sharks to attach these to.

cool science stuff today. really looking forward to the results of the fusion tests. well unless they blow up he universe with them.
 

Imthatguy

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Sep 11, 2009
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Quaxar said:
I wonder if you could make that portable and attach it to the Hubble telescope...
Planetary Defense 101

OT: Fuck yeah fill the chamber with hydrogen and lets get some fusion going on.
 

TallanKhan

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Aug 13, 2009
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Im sorry i only got as far as Deathstar and stopped reading to ponder the practical applications of this. And as if this isnt enough we have a nice pointy shiney new skyscraper in London thats just begging to be converted into a doom-lair. Its like all my christmases (Christmi?) have come at once! *Manical laughter*
 

Chimpzy_v1legacy

Warning! Contains bananas!
Jun 21, 2009
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CardinalPiggles said:
Hmm, I wonder what would happen if we fired it into the sun?
Probably nothing at all. The sun already has a self-sustaining fusion reaction going on. One that is astronomically more energetic than the mosquito bite NIF's laser can deliver to it.

On another note, National Ignition Facility is a badass name. Sounds like they spend their entire time igniting stuff with lasers for the lulz. Oh wait, that is what they do.