Scientists for decades have been hunting for ways to harness the enormous force of the sun and stars to supply energy here on Earth. The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory may spark the light at the end of the tunnel.
An openning ceramony of the facility is held today. via: UC
As reported by Optics.org, Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology (ILT) in Aachen, Germany, will unveil a femtosecond laser of a world-beating power output of 400 W at LASER World of Photonics in Munich, Germany, next month.
That’s a monumental improvement on most commercial femtosecond lasers, which produce an average output power around the single-watt level, while even high-end models are limited to the 50-100 W range.“The Fraunhofer ILT is introducing a paradigm shift in the design of commercial femtosecond lasers,” claimed Axel Bauer, head of the institute’s marketing and communications group. “Our laser module holds the world record for average output power among lasers with pulse durations of less than one picosecond.”
Chunlei Guo, an associate professor of optics at the University of Rochester, had use ultrafast laser to turn any metal pitch black. Now he has successfuly demonstrate a reverse process, make metal radiate light more effectively!
An ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester. The process could make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper and radiating a more pleasant light than a fluorescent bulb can.
The laser process creates a unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament—the tiny wire inside a light bulb—and theses structures make the tungsten become far more effective at radiating light.
The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
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