Re: Possible way to turn a 200mw to a 99999MW lase
nice thread, interesting read!
yes, we need some alternative way to produce power, the dark side of the moon has been dark just too long!
i like the calculation of the power and pulselength depending on "pump"-time!
one thing i learned is, that when you have an optical path, lenses, mirrors, whatever, with linear things in it only (no frequency-doubling for example), everything is reversable. shine a parallel beam into a lens, get a widening beam. shine a "widening beam" into that lens, get a parallel beam on the other side. thats how you can easily find reasons why you cant (easily) combine laserbeams to a small and powerful monsterbeam.
now to some other interesting idea:
there are materials with *really* slow lightspeed in it.
that means: in vacuum, lightspeed is c. in any real medium, light travels slower, and differently, depending on optical density and other stuff. same with sound, it travels in water quicker than in air, for example.
they built a material with lightspeed being in the order of inches per second! means, you shine light in it, and it gets out after some seconds on the other end. theoretically, anyway.
you can built a window from it where you see the sun in nighttime and vice versa, how about one wall with normal windows, one wall with that strange stuff? 24 hours sunlight!
or, you pump a rod of that stuff with a gigawatt cw laser, and lay that small stick into a room with unsuspecting people.. surprise! or what would happen if you have such a charged "laser-capacitor", and smash it?
most of that stuff wont work, i am sure, for some reason. but the material does exist, i may find it if you ask!
and yes, i believe that the only limitation is ones imagination!
manuel