Superfast laser delivers record-breaking peak power of one petawatt every second

[admin]

Not even a month since researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) announced a 500 trillion watt laser shot, researchers at the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) have managed to deliver a record-breaking petawatt, that is, a quadrillion watts, in a pulse just 40 femtoseconds long at a rate of one pulse every second. To put that in perspective, a petawatt is more than the combined output of all electric power plants in the world at any given time and one femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second. Surprisingly, the laser’s average power is only 42.2 watts, but compressing this modest amount of power into an extremely short pulse is what resulted in such massive peak power... Continue Reading Superfast laser delivers record-breaking peak power of one petawatt every second

Section: Research Watch

Tags: Laser, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Plasma

Related Articles:

• The world's most powerful laser
• Record-setting 500 trillion-watt laser shot achieved
• Dark Pulse Laser emits trillionths-of-a-second bursts of nothing
• World's largest laser takes first steps towards nuclear fusion reaction
• World record 1 megajoule laser shot hits target
• Sandia simulation suggests sunny skies for fusion reactors