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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

laser gun

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Jul 4, 2010
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Hey guys :)
I'm wondering about the theoretical possibility of making a laser gun. Does anybody know what kind of power density you need to burn a hole in meat? I have some hundred mW lasers, but clearly they don't work even if focussed, what would work?

john
 





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High power IR. Maybe CO2 or Yag?

This has been discussed before. Try searching from the google search bar at the bottom of the page.
 
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Hemlock Mike, I believe. Of course, AnselmoFanZero builds some genuinely scary stuff too.
 
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Hey guys :)
I'm wondering about the theoretical possibility of making a laser gun. Does anybody know what kind of power density you need to burn a hole in meat? I have some hundred mW lasers, but clearly they don't work even if focussed, what would work?

john

Hi John, I've built a few laser guns before. Nothing that shoots holes in meat though, sorry man :beer:

 
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You know, I had an idea, but I wasn't sure if its legal because would it technically be an energy based weapon?

But I was thinking, take a yag array, and flash pump that baby with a lightning storm, and use some optics, im talking 3inch diameter stuff. Now natural distortion of air renders it essentially useless at long ranges, so sniping wouldn't work, which was the idea. But...the tech exist to make it work.

That boeing that shoots down missiles has a variable waveplate that creates a negative to the atmospheric distortion, slap that between the optics, with a secondary laser rangefinder, and some precision steppers to focus the optics by rangefinders results. And you can snipe a hole in a grenade a few miles out.
 
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take a yag array, and flash pump that baby with a lightning storm

GxTnK.jpg


How do you intend on doing that?
 
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Haha..maybe I am crazy... its a rough idea. How about some kind of tubing like a honeycomb, each with its own flash pump and crystal, then use some optics to bring down the size of the array. And have it able to focus At a distance. Maybe use a solar panel to recharge the caps directly, or a battery.
 

bmd19

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Haha..maybe I am crazy... its a rough idea. How about some kind of tubing like a honeycomb, each with its own flash pump and crystal, then use some optics to bring down the size of the array. And have it able to focus At a distance. Maybe use a solar panel to recharge the caps directly, or a battery.

Could work :D
 
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Yes, that honeycomb idea was what I had in mind. I did some experiments with high powered lasers and my hand, and did some order of magnitude calculations.

I considered a theoretical honeycomb array of about 30cm diameter packed with 3W diodes , I also considered just one powerful pulse of <0.3seconds. It's a bit of a stretch, but I wanted to go a little beyond current technology. All the diodes are focussed by lenses to a small 5mm diameter spot.

From the calculations and experiments below, I concluded this gun will not be enough to burn a fatal hole into flesh, just a painful burn mark.

For those who like physics, if a person were made 100% out of water, you might just be able to inflict a fair sized hole with this gun, not quite fatal though. This is a simple calculation given beam diameter, laser pulse energy, vapourisation of water and a 100% laser absorption assumption. This puts a minimum on the required laser firepower you would need to shoot a fatal hole in a person.

It seems from my experiments that the skin and tissue of humans can take a fair bit of laser. Lasers in the continuous Watts, ~5mm diameter on skin only caused pain over ~0.3 second, no hole. Hand held laser guns that shoot holes in people are simply out of the question. The super laser gun I considered can only just make a hole in water, given that humans have a fair bit of water, but also have layers of skin and tissue we need a better laser.

Aside from the lack of firepower, the electronics, energy storage, size/weight are quite possible, someone on these forums could definately build a honeycomb system with a bunch or IR diodes or Blue 1W diodes. I think someone here was ganna build some kind of laser lightsaber like this? Would at least look cool.
 
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Oh I should add, I was considering energy storage, heat sinks, lasers, everything in hand. An actual hand held gun, if it's not all in hand then maybe it's possible? From my experiments and calculations, I still think it wouldn't be possible. If anyone has a huge parabolic mirror/dish lying around, focus a large area of sunlight to a point on a moist steak for a second and see if it burns a hole. We'd expect about 100W sunlight per square meter reflected from the dish to a small spot on the steak, if a hole burns, maybe there is hope for a laser gun?

Oh, for anyone interested in making a honeycomb handgun build, I considered an array or supercapacitors or Li-ion batteries behind the diode array. You should be able to get off a ridiculous number of shots with these. They are small, light weight, not too expensive and have store plenty of energy. Could reload capacitors/batteries like you reload bullets.
 
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Hmm well yes, but I think diodes don't put out enough energy. A single yag rod can burn a hole in a can easily. But several should be able to be lethal. Im pretty sure a high end tem00 laser cutter that can cut out 1/8" steel could easily chop off a finger. But most of those I believe Are co2 lasers.
 
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That's interesting, I'll look into it. If you happen to know a link to one of these lasers could you please post it?
 
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Well post number 7 is a link to one that uses a single YAG crystal. But if you just jump over to ebay and search for a yag rod or google it. You will find some info on them. Im on my phone, otherwise I would link stuff
 




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