Brainiacs Complete World's First Anti-Laser

[Tom Goldman]

Brainiacs Complete World's First Anti-Laser

Laser gun owners beware: The anti-laser is here.

The future of laser warfare may have hit a huge snag with a recent development by a team at Yale University. The team has created the world's first "anti-laser," designed to absorb light.

In truth, it wasn't developed as a weapon. The army of ray-gun wielding robots you've been building may still be effective at taking over the world. Instead, Yale Professor Douglas Stone and his colleagues say it would likely be used in optical computing.

Stone reveals that while working on a theory to "predict what could be used to form a laser," the team came up with an idea for a device that absorbs a laser's light, and then built one. As the BBC describes, the device "focuses two lasers beams of a specific frequency into a specially designed optical cavity made from silicon, which traps the incoming beams of light and forces them to bounce around until all their energy is dissipated."

It can absorb 99.4% of incoming light at a particular wavelength. The fact that it can be specific in regards to wavelength is important, because this allows the device to be used in an optical switch.

However, when it comes to taking on laser weaponry, the anti-laser still dissipates the energy as heat, so it'd likely still fry a person hit by a powerful beam. The true excitement that we should take from the advancement is in the optical computers that we may someday be using, not the laser shields. Yet.

Thanks Cgull [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/profiles/view/Cgull]

Source: BBC [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12453893]

Permalink

 

[Zer_]

Well done. You put a picture of the Moonraker up. You win an internet, sir.

Also: Cool stuff!

 

[thethingthatlurks]

How is this different from simple interference? Delay one beam so that it will cancel out with the first one via destructive interference. This sounds absolutely pointless to me, especially since .6% is retained as heat.
Also, anti-laser=anti-light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. So...dimming light by creating a population inversion in some compound? Talk about a name fail...

 

[SimuLord]

I thought the best defense against a laser weapon was a mirror. Isn't that how Spaceball One self-destructed?

 

[Enkidu88]

So basically its like the shields from star trek or star wars, designed to dissipate the energy from lasers before they impact the hull. Awesome.

 

[Hungry Donner]

I can't deny that an anti-laser is impressive but I think a mirror-universe laser with a goatee would be more so.

 

[gigastrike]

Didn't some Chinese guy already do this with infrared?

 

[Therumancer]

So basically its like the shields from star trek or star wars, designed to dissipate the energy from lasers before they impact the hull. Awesome.

Star Wars maybe, but Star Trek uses a differant pseudo-science basis for their technology. The major weapons being used are disruptors, which disintergrate molecular bonds and break down coherant energy fields, and phasers which employ "phased particles" or quite simply are a particle beam that fires the energy through multiple dimensions at the same time. The various "stunts" performed with phasors come from controlling that reaction so the energy
can be used in differant ways when it enters the real world.

At one time Star Trek was actually science fiction, and some thought was put into the basis for the technologies and how they interacted, as time went on this became less and less of the case. Star Wars was always "space fantasy" however and never really science fiction, there is real underlying principles under which things work other than "whatever is cool and furthers the story".

A good analysis of the differances is how Star Wars has Space Fighters, and Trek doesn't. The reasons is quite simply that the idea might be cool, but it's impractical, which is why Trek didn't have them until much later. In space things like mass are far less relevent, speed being largely governed entirely by power output. The logic of something smaller being able to move faster doesn't hold up, especially seeing as a smaller object isn't going to be able to carry as big a power plant and will be generating less energy as a larger vessel of the same tech level. This means that not only is a smaller ship also going to be slower, but it's lower power output gives it far less to put behind things like shields and weapons, and it wouldn't be able to catch a larger ship, never mind zip around and do any damage even using a 'beesting' type logic. Not to mention the simple issue of engagement distances being fought at hundreds of thousands or millions of miles, and weapons hidding with blast radiuses measured in miles. Consider for example that even in the old Trek, Captain Kirk set the Enterprise's phasors on "stun" and knocked out multiple city blocks with one shot (when pretending to be a gangster on an earth like planet). Later additions to Trek like video games DID add space fighters, and we also had the "runabouts" from DS-9 which some mentioned would have had the original writers (not just Roddenberry) rolling over in their graves with some of the things they did.

Just a long nerd rant in response to something petty.

At any rate, to be entirely honest I have no doubt laser weapons are going to get here eventually, simply because common sense doesn't dictate scientific advancement. For some reason people became fixated on the idea of laser weapons despite there being far more efficient ways to fight, and every year we wind up finding ways to make them more powerful and efficient. To say nothing of all the uses for lasers outside of destroying things that we've found during the search... one of the key reasons why I am one of those that don't believe that a hypothetical alien civilization with space travel would be superior to us in every conceivable way (which I won't go into in more detail here since I'm already rambling).

An anti-laser field seems like it could be useful, but a lot depends on how hard it is to project, and of course how much of a power draw it involves. Honestly I can't see this tech being used for anything other than things like computing from the way it sounds, since it seems to be something that is only practical on a very localized level, like something you set up with the intention of feeding lasers directly into it (as described for computing more or less).

I imagine that when we see practical man portable laser weapons, the countermeasure is probably going to be the classic method of "Reflec" or simply mirror sheened clothing with heat retardance. Incidently this was the logic behind all those vintage bright silver costumes in a lot of old science fiction (that was real science fiction). It served a practical purpose at least in the writing, as opposed to simply being people from the future setting out to look differant simply because they were from the future. In a world with laser based weaponry, a mirror-sheened catsuit or body stocking, either on it's own or worn under other clothing can actually be practical. Especially if you have the techology to make the fabric out of a material equivilent to like kevlar or dullaroy so deal with kinetics as well.

 

[Sejs Cube]

pkkkkkwwwww...


...laser shield.

 

[WrongSprite]

Is it just me who thought of this when they saw the title?

http://www.skyone.co.uk/images/programme/15/current/cast1_big.jpg

 

[DEAD34345]

How is this different from simple interference? Delay one beam so that it will cancel out with the first one via destructive interference. This sounds absolutely pointless to me, especially since .6% is retained as heat.
Also, anti-laser=anti-light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. So...dimming light by creating a population inversion in some compound? Talk about a name fail...

Destructive doesn't work like that, you can't simply remove energy from existence, either you would create interference fringes of increased and decreased energy, or the laser itself wouldn't exist to begin with, due to the weird way photons seem to have intelligence with regards to these things...

The anti-laser doesn't dissipate .6% as heat, it dissipates 99.4% as heat, and presumably the other .6% remains as light or is transformed into another form of energy.

 

[Carlston]

I thought the best defense against a laser weapon was a mirror. Isn't that how Spaceball One self-destructed?

Well...kinda, but if it is not angled just right and made out of material so it can reflect the energy back and not melt while doing so (since it would not be a 100 percent reflection and heat would build) Just hope they have a weak laser and you have a really well built mirror.

It's like saying your tires are rubber so if lightning hits your car your ok...

Yet most cars directly hit by lightning their tires explode...works in theory.

 

[DEAD34345]

Double post, ignore please.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

How is this different from simple interference? Delay one beam so that it will cancel out with the first one via destructive interference. This sounds absolutely pointless to me, especially since .6% is retained as heat.
Also, anti-laser=anti-light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. So...dimming light by creating a population inversion in some compound? Talk about a name fail...

Destructive doesn't work like that, you can't simply remove energy from existence, either you would create interference fringes of increased and decreased energy, or the laser itself wouldn't exist to begin with, due to the weird way photons seem to have intelligence with regards to these things...

The anti-laser doesn't dissipate .6% as heat, it dissipates 99.4% as heat, and presumably the other .6% remains as light or is transformed into another form of energy.

Destructive interference doesn't remove the energy (that would be reducing the frequency to zero), it simply reduces the amplitude of the lightwave to zero. If you want to think of it in terms of quantum mechanics, it reduces the probability of finding the *thing* that carries energy to zero everywhere. All you are doing is combining two beams of light, which cancel each other out, nothing terribly fancy.
As for photons, you aren't trying to determine its origin or path, just its frequency. No need to worry about quantum effects where they do not apply...

I'll admit I was wrong about the heat though. Guess I should read these things more carefully..

 

[Wintermoot]

I think this demot is appropriate now
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn67/van_Neon/Demotivational%20Posters/demotposterantibeambeam.jpg
still its nice to know we have a weapon against the inevitable robot uprising

 

[hansari]

still its nice to know we have a weapon against the inevitable robot uprising

Not like those robots have fast processing speeds to quickly come up with a solution before we wipe them out.

Oh wait...

 

[Akisa]

So basically its like the shields from star trek or star wars, designed to dissipate the energy from lasers before they impact the hull. Awesome.

A good analysis of the differances is how Star Wars has Space Fighters, and Trek doesn't. The reasons is quite simply that the idea might be cool, but it's impractical, which is why Trek didn't have them until much later. In space things like mass are far less relevent, speed being largely governed entirely by power output. The logic of something smaller being able to move faster doesn't hold up, especially seeing as a smaller object isn't going to be able to carry as big a power plant and will be generating less energy as a larger vessel of the same tech level. This means that not only is a smaller ship also going to be slower, but it's lower power output gives it far less to put behind things like shields and weapons, and it wouldn't be able to catch a larger ship, never mind zip around and do any damage even using a 'beesting' type logic. Not to mention the simple issue of engagement distances being fought at hundreds of thousands or millions of miles, and weapons hidding with blast radiuses measured in miles. Consider for example that even in the old Trek, Captain Kirk set the Enterprise's phasors on "stun" and knocked out multiple city blocks with one shot (when pretending to be a gangster on an earth like planet). Later additions to Trek like video games DID add space fighters, and we also had the "runabouts" from DS-9 which some mentioned would have had the original writers (not just Roddenberry) rolling over in their graves with some of the things they did.

Just a long nerd rant in response to something petty.

I believe the point of fighters they were much more maneuverable then ships. It takes far more energy and time to change an object direction in space. Then again I don't have a degree in relating field so I don't know. I would imagine other ships would force an engagement and fighters would approach from different direction. Not only that fighters doesn't as much staying power and could opt for less fuel efficient drives for more power out.

 

[DEAD34345]

Destructive interference doesn't remove the energy (that would be reducing the frequency to zero), it simply reduces the amplitude of the lightwave to zero. If you want to think of it in terms of quantum mechanics, it reduces the probability of finding the *thing* that carries energy to zero everywhere. All you are doing is combining two beams of light, which cancel each other out, nothing terribly fancy.
As for photons, you aren't trying to determine its origin or path, just its frequency. No need to worry about quantum effects where they do not apply...

I'll admit I was wrong about the heat though. Guess I should read these things more carefully..

Honestly this is beyond the limit of what i fully understand, and i think i was thinking of light as a mechanical wave (with energy dependent on amplitude) in one of the places where it is different. However if only the amplitude is changed through destructive interference, and the light wave still exists with an amplitude of 0, then wouldn't using destructive interference in the "anti-laser" not work at all, since the laser would still exist but with a different amplitude?

 

[emeraldrafael]

Is it just me who thought of this when they saw the title?

http://www.skyone.co.uk/images/programme/15/current/cast1_big.jpg

No, I thought them too. This is cool, but I'm still disappointed that it wasnt THOSE Brainiacs.