Energy Weapons

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2003-04-06 01:09pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Incidentally, how do you make a neutron beam since they're neutral?

Besides radioactive sources (esp. Radium), there are reactions like Be-9 with a deuteron (H-2 nucleus) that produces a neutron. Deuterons are charged, so it's not difficult to accelerate them.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-04-06 02:11pm

You could also use neutral atoms. Basical put a positive charge on an atom, accelerate it and then tack on an extra electron as it leaves - NPB.

Still, why bother if a laser can do the same thing with greater efficiency and much smaller space requirements?

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-04-06 02:16pm

Aerius mentioned petawatt lasers. What frequency of light would the laser be producing at that power level, or are power and frequency independent? Also, if wanted a petawatt laser that could run for an extended period of time, but you don't have the materials to support a single emitter running for that time without melting, could you use multiple lasers focused on the same spot and running in parallel to achieve the same effects? My knowledge of physics is lacking in this area.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-04-06 02:29pm

Arrow Mk84 wrote:Aerius mentioned petawatt lasers. What frequency of light would the laser be producing at that power level, or are power and frequency independent? Also, if wanted a petawatt laser that could run for an extended period of time, but you don't have the materials to support a single emitter running for that time without melting, could you use multiple lasers focused on the same spot and running in parallel to achieve the same effects? My knowledge of physics is lacking in this area.

PetaWatt lasers like VULCAN only fire for extremely small timeslots, you could hardly call them weapons.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2003-04-06 02:37pm

Arrow Mk84 wrote:Aerius mentioned petawatt lasers. What frequency of light would the laser be producing at that power level, or are power and frequency independent?

A photon has energy E = hf, where f is frequency (Hz) and h is Planck's Constant. A laser's wattage refers to the total energy of the photons it emits per second, so the frequency depends on how many photons they emit per second (it would probably be more correct to say how many photons the laser emits depends on the wattage, since conventional lasers have a fixed frequency).

Arrow Mk84 wrote:Also, if wanted a petawatt laser that could run for an extended period of time, but you don't have the materials to support a single emitter running for that time without melting, could you use multiple lasers focused on the same spot and running in parallel to achieve the same effects?

Certainly. The only PW-range lasers I've heard of are actually many individual lasers focused on the same spot. (Edit: Correction: I haven't even seen a petawatt laser, though the larger-power ones I've seen still have many converging beams.)