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Plasma optic combines lasers into superbeam
- WillReplyfFood 9y ago"Plasma is generally bad for lasers" The plasma is the best part. With plasma you can print current carrying channels into mid-air, with plasma you can transfer electric charges on them. With plasma your mid-air printed coil can put a force on things.
- dcow 9y agoThey go on to mention how it's beneficial in this case too...
- WillReplyfFood 9y agoYes - for lensing, but not for conducting structure printing.
- dekhn 9y agoI assumed (not a laser expert) that the plasma that forms out of the gain media is what is problematic with a typical solid state laser, while in this case, the plasma is the medium.
- throwawayaway12 9y agoThe plasma at the end of the laser path is usually the best part. Even then, things like laser-plasma instabilities (LPI) can have devastating consequences.
- ZenoArrow 9y agoCould be useful for nuclear fusion: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_confinement_fusion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_confinement_fusion
- unwind 9y agoWell, the National Ignition Facility is a fusion research lab, so that is kind of implied. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility for more.
- ZenoArrow 9y agoI'm aware of what the NIF is, I skim read the article so I didn't pick up that they were behind it.
- beautifulfreak 9y agoThis should be good for their fusion efforts. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-powered-lasers-deliver-fusion-energy-breakthrough/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-powered-lase...
- jasmcole 9y agoThese results come from the National Ignition Facility, the world's biggest ICF experiment.
- qarioz 9y ago9 beams combined into a single beam with energy 4 times of a single beam.