Laser Question

[Arrow]

1) Would it be theoritically possible to be a laser (IR to X-Ray spectrum) that could transmit gigawatts or terawatts of power to its target?

2) How does a free-electron laser work?

[Mr Bean]

1) Would it be theoritically possible to be a laser (IR to X-Ray spectrum) that could transmit gigawatts or terawatts of power to its target?

Its Theoritically possible to build a Yottawatt Laser, Can you power the thing or Aim it?
No....

[Enlightenment]

1) Would it be theoritically possible to be a laser (IR to X-Ray spectrum) that could transmit gigawatts or terawatts of power to its target?

It's physically possible. Actually doing it would be one hell of an engineering problem, though.

2) How does a free-electron laser work?

A FEL is basically a particle accelerator that shoots electrons into a rapidly changing, high-power, magnetic field. The magnetic field causes the electrons to shift between energy states and emit photons. For more details go digging in google.

[SyntaxVorlon]

what is a yottawatt?
1e?

[Enlightenment]

what is a yottawatt?
1e?

http://www.alcyone.com/max/reference/ph ... fixes.html

[kojikun]

enlight; the FEL uses accelerative electron radiation? nice. how to they tune the frequency output? synchrotrons have a bitch of a time dealing with the hard xrays produced during travel but i dont think the electrons produce visible light synchrotron radiation..

[ClaysGhost]

1) Would it be theoritically possible to be a laser (IR to X-Ray spectrum) that could transmit gigawatts or terawatts of power to its target?

There are lasers that operate at terawatt power levels, as you can establish with a search on Google or similar. There are a few that operate at the 100's of terawatts level, and one (two?) that have reached petawatt levels. All are designed for materials or fusion research, and therefore do not transfer much energy to the target (from one to a few hundred joules). The military seem to regard lasers in the high tens of kW and above as possible weapons. I think the most powerful (advertised) continuous beam laser in use (as a test device only) by the military is an IR laser called MIRACL, which delivers a few megawatts.

FELs can adjust the emission frequency by altering the speed (energy) of the electron beam or the scale of the undulating magnetic field used to wiggle the beam; see

http://www-hasylab.desy.de/facility/fel ... basics.htm

FELs may provide an alternative route to X-ray lasers, a route rather more practicable than the "take one nuke..." method:

http://www.desy.de/pr-info/desyhome/htm ... ft.en.html

There are efficiency and size issues with FELs.

[Arrow]

Cool. Thanks for the info.

[kojikun]

remember that the terawatt and petawatt lasers do not operate for more then a fraction of a second, reducing the energy used to a small amount.