The future of lasers

[nikokapo]

[quote author=nikokapo link=1212434636/12#14 date=1212598811]10mm diodes? wow.

what does "self-contained" mean regarding diodes?

10mm [highlight]modules [/highlight]-- I was talking about modules that contain diodes.

Self-contained modules means that the driver and diode are already included in the module (like the 5mW aixiz red modules).  You just stick them onto a battery (just like the red modules) and you have 10mW of 405nm laser light!

Oh, and green modules shouldn't be far behind.  Micro sized "chip" green lasers have already been developed.

Peace,
dave
[/quote]



ohh!! that'd be so awesome.... i imagine myself buying some aixiz 10mW modules off DX and some flashlight to hack !!!

 

[Switch]

They made "chip" green lasers? Cool! The smallest I've seen was a tiny 5.6mm DPSS module that looked like a diode with a very long can.But they were asking something like $2k for a 100mW module. :

Anyway, these would be cool for laser gloves

 

[nikokapo]

They made "chip" green lasers? Cool! The smallest I've seen was a tiny 5.6mm DPSS module that looked like a diode with a very long can.But they were asking something like $2k for a 100mW module. :

Anyway, these would be cool for laser gloves

Lol i see the laser glove as a millionaire idea for the next years

 

[Schrecken_Licht]

i think they could use co2 lasers to hurt people.

Actually the future of laser weaponry is in solid-state lasers. CO2 lasers haven't been used in weapons research since the early 1980's. Even chemical lasers are expected to be phased out in the next couple of decades.

However, no SS laser has yet to reach the 100Kw threshold that the military demands for battlefield lasers. I think the best they have gotten to is about a 3rd of that. Heat is the problem - it's much tougher to get rid of head from a solid than a gas or liquid.


Anyway, speaking of future laser weapons, I've got a ton of links on the subject if anyone's interested. Here's two articles published today:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/solid-state-las.html
http://gizmodo.com/5013018/boeing-s...er-weapons-one-step-closer-to-being-a-reality

Some older links with good general info:

http://www.spacewar.com/rayguns.html
http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/article_display.html?id=212412
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9979-top-10-weapons-of-the-future.html
http://www.laserfocusworld.com/disp...ontiers:-laser-weapons---Pumping-up-the-power

Here's a good one - quote from link below:

"According to the Marines' laser request, obtained by DANGER ROOM, this so-called Precision Airborne Standoff Directed Energy Weapon (PASDEW) wouldn't just be an improved killed machine. It would also have particularly devastating psychological effects. Such weapons, when used against people, "can be compared to long range blow torches or precision flame throwers, with corresponding psychological advantages for [Coalition Forces] CF."

In other words, the lasers don't just kill people, but they kill people in really gruesome, frightening ways -- particularly because the beam from such weapons, like the Advanced Tactical Laser, is invisible to the human eye. That means you could have three guys standing around, and one of them suddenly burst into flames."
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/12/military-reques.html?cid=92393600#comment-92393600

And another about laser bio-effects (in otherwords, what happens when a killer beam meets flesh):

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/when-laser-me-1.html?cid=113619814#comment-113619814

 

[Switch]

That last quote is messed up I thought they banned exploding bullets for that reason.Reminds me of the video wannaburn posted, with the mysterious limb and head cutting , abdomen opening weapon.

Btw, if you like to experiment on a small scale, I saw a huge diode array type thingy on ebay for $1000(or that was just the starting bid :-/) made out of ten 100W 808nm bars, so there you go, your own kiloWatt laser 15mRad claimed by the manufacturer , but the seller said he tested it and got better results.
Sounds expensive, but maybe after you build the whole PSU and cooling system, you're still gonna have something with $2/Watt, which is pretty cheap.

I don't imagine what kind of wall socket would give you 300Amps, though :-/

 

[lamborgini8]

a co2 tank with a nuclear batt.

I cant see CO2 lasers being used for offence in the future at all, especially if nuclear batteries will be used... As soon as the enemy works out whats going on, all they have to do is aim for the laser for a small exposion that will take off a persons arms or aim for the nuclear battery which will wipe out everyone within a 15 mils radius...

I can see them being used for defence though, the military already invented air defence lasers that can shoot a millile out of the sky so why not use them for ground based defence, invisible fences? disabling weapons on tanks, taking out enemy car tyres from 20 miles away... The possibilities are endless for that.

 

[mikewitt]

One of the biggest advances in lasers (I think) will be making lasers more efficient in cooling. One application of lasers right now is to cool gases down to a state known as a "bose-einstein condensate" (It's a fourth state, Gas -> Liquid -> Solid -> Bose-Einstein Condensate) and bose-einstein condensates actually slow light down to about the speed of a bicyclist. This would make quantum computing quite possible, even practical.

If those types of lasers became commercially available, it would revolutionize computing, and likely usher in a new era of human life; it would make possible AI, and calculations which take distributed computing (like Folding@home) years to complete would take nanoseconds for a quantum computer to calculate. Essentially, the slowest quantum computer is multiple orders of magnitude faster than all of the computers in the world combined.

 

[Switch]

or aim for the nuclear battery which will wipe out everyone within a 15 mils radius...

Lol, that's not exactly how it works. You can't whack uranium with a hammer or set it on fire and expect a nuclear explosion. It's not that easy to "detonate".

 

[nikokapo]

One of the biggest advances in lasers (I think) will be making lasers more efficient in cooling. One application of lasers right now is to cool gases down to a state known as a "bose-einstein condensate" (It's a fourth state, Gas -> Liquid -> Solid -> Bose-Einstein Condensate) and bose-einstein condensates actually slow light down to about the speed of a bicyclist. This would make quantum computing quite possible, even practical.

How is it possible to cool something down with a laser?

 

[mikewitt]

[quote author=styropyro link=1212434636/0#10 date=1212543350]For visible laser diodes, I can see blue and green diodes being mass produced for use in new RGB technologies sometime in the future. I don't see orange or yellow laser diodes becoming available because there is no real use for them at the moment.

IMO, blue diodes are getting more attention than green. They can be used for mass storage devices, green arent really better than blue diodes, so I don't see greenies getting cheaper than blue (in percentage) over the years.[/quote]
From a pure practicality standpoint, it would seem that the manufacturers will move to UV lasers before they create a violet or blue diode. UV has shorter wavelength, so greater data density. Unfortunately that means they move out of the visible spectrum. From there they may develop green, blue, or violet diodes, because then they might be able to use fewer frequency doublers (greater efficiency) for those UV lasers.

 

[mikewitt]

[quote author=mikewitt link=1212434636/12#22 date=1212678758]One of the biggest advances in lasers (I think) will be making lasers more efficient in cooling. One application of lasers right now is to cool gases down to a state known as a "bose-einstein condensate" (It's a fourth state, Gas -> Liquid -> Solid -> Bose-Einstein Condensate) and bose-einstein condensates actually slow light down to about the speed of a bicyclist. This would make quantum computing quite possible, even practical.

How is it possible to cool something down with a laser?[/quote]
If you hit the molecules at precisely the right times, you can slow them down.
It's like being on a swing; if you stick your legs out as you go up, and under you as you go down, you'll get higher and higher. If you tuck your legs under when going up, and stick them out when going down, you'll slow down, and eventually stop.

That's about all I know, but I know that they have done it, and made Bose-Einstein condensates.

EDIT: Found a good link which explains it very well. http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/lascool1.html

 

[nikokapo]

But making them slower will drop their temperatures?

If that's true they could be very close to a superconductor.

 

[mikewitt]

Bose-Einstein Condensates exist at temperatures far cooler than superconductors.

 

[nikokapo]

Have they reached that state? Or maintained it for practical purposes?

 

[mikewitt]

They have created and maintained Rubidium and a few other elemental condensates, but as of yet, there are no practical applications.

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/what_its_good_for.html has good information on its uses.

 

[nikokapo]

Nice explanation, simple.
Thanks.