Another laser question

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-04-26 01:28pm

This may sound off the wall, but what is theoritical upper limit of a laser's power output? I know that material used for the lasing has a lot to do with this (such as if put to much energy into it, it will melt), and I know its a broad, hard to answer question, but does anyone have a ball-park figure?

Cyborg Stan · Post by **Cyborg Stan** » 2003-04-26 01:37pm

Uhhhh..... pretty damn high. A laser, just being a beam of monochromatic light..... and considering you never said anything about intensity (there's nothing against 'splicing' a bunch of beams together.... also, lasers that operate in bursts, etc etc....

Okay, I guess what I can saw is : try a good portion of the universe's energy. (All of it if it weren't for conservation of momentum.)

Cyborg Stan · Post by **Cyborg Stan** » 2003-04-26 01:38pm

Whoops. I said 'energy' when the question was about 'power'. Still, I believe my original point I was trying to make stands, whatever the hell it was, as I can't quite remember exactly.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-04-26 01:48pm

theoretically a laser can output at any power. practically, however, you have to deal with reflectors to cause lasing, and at some point the energy from the laser beam would destroyer laser before lasing began. But thanks to the xray laser thread we can atleast guess that the time it takes to lase is so small that even nukes don't put out energy fast enough to destroy the mirrors before lasing.

That gives us some idea. I guess the real issue is where the light comes from. If you're using induced light, as in a flashtube laser, or some related system that requires energy to come from something other then the lasing light, then you might get excessive heating in the mirrors before lasing occurs. If the lasing light is the same as the light inducing lasing, as in a bomb pumped xray laser, then the light causes lasing faster then it heats the mirrors.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-04-26 01:48pm

Well, I'm more interested in how much power could you put through a lasing medium. A crystal or gas or some other medium can only take so much powerful before becomes useless as a medium (gas turns into plasma and melts through whatever is containing it, plus gas can't do higher frequency lasers; the crystal will melt, etc).

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-04-26 01:55pm

Well then the issue youre looking for is the energy required to ionise a given material to 100% so that no nucleus has any orbiting electrons.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-04-26 02:03pm

That doesn't sound very pratical. Proton-proton repulsion would be a bitch and then you'd have to worry about the mirrors as well (kojikun, you post just before I made my last post, so I didn't see your first reply).

So to be more specific, how much power (with a duration of at least a second) can be put through a laser without destroying the device?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-04-26 02:07pm

again, the answer comes down to how much energy is require to ionise all the atoms in the lasing medium. if you pump a certain amount of energy in, its GOING to ionise them, so the issue is "how much is that".

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-04-26 02:10pm

Ok, I see what your saying (duh). Once the lasing medium is ionized, its useless.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-04-26 02:57pm

Exactly. Can't lase if theres no stimulated emissions, and for those you need electrons orbiting a nuclei.

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