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> 10 petawatts laser for one picosecond > magnetic field plasma containment > produces 300KWh I’ll admit, while I’ve always been interested in lasers, I’m de
by jsjohnst 9y ago
> 10 petawatts laser for one picosecond
> magnetic field plasma containment
> produces 300KWh
I’ll admit, while I’ve always been interested in lasers, I’m definitely below amateur level with them, but these requirements:
1) seems like its multiple orders of magnitude higher power than anything I’ve heard of in laser tech. Like 5-7 orders of magnitude. Is there research I’m unaware of here?
2) let’s assume for a second that the laser could be made, wouldn’t it require multiple orders of magnitude more power (as in 2-3 at least) to fire than what this reaction produces?
3) have we been able to contain plasma (as in super high energy plasma, not the stuff you see in novelty shops or older TV sets) for very long in a magnetic field? I thought the record was in number of seconds, certainly not long enough to be used for any continuous power production.
Edit:
Guess I was wrong on #1/2, had forgotten about this research[0] I’d read.
[0] http://www.iflscience.com/technology/world-s-most-powerful-laser-2000-trillion-watts-what-s-it/ http://www.iflscience.com/technology/world-s-most-powerful-l...
- throwawayaway12 9y agoThere are definitely petawatt class lasers currently (ex. the Texas petawatt). I think most are of order 100 fs.
- jsjohnst 9y agoPer the research I just did, 2PW has been done for one picosecond, 10PW is being built. Apparently because of the very very short pulse, the energy required is trivially small (as in less than a light bulb in your house for an hour)
- jammaloo 9y ago10 petawatts for one picosecond is only a small amount of energy, about 0.002778 KWh http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10+petawatts+for+1+picosecond+in+kwh http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10+petawatts+for+1+pico...
- monochromatic 9y agoFor a CW (continuous wave) laser, that would indeed be a lot of power. But for a q-switched pulsed laser, it’s not impossible.
- abecedarius 9y ago10PW for 1 psec is 10^4 joules. 300 kWh is about 10^9 joules. I don't know what the inefficiencies may be, but these numbers leave quite a bit of room for them.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- scythe 9y agoFor background on the laser technology that makes this possible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode-locking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode-locking
- DennisP 9y agoMagnetic containment is a different technology. With laser ignition you're just aiming for a quick explosion, and do it repeatedly.