Hasta La Gadget!

Researchers at the University of Tennessee’s Center for Laser Applications have developed a femtosecond laser that can non-invasively diagnose, map, irradiate and burn cancerous tumors. Utilizing a beam that pulses at one-quadrillionth of a second, the technology is able to seek out growths and obliterate them with an increased burst of intensity. “Using ultra-short light pulses gives us the ability to focus in a well confined region and the ability for intense radiation,” says Associate Professor of Physics Christian Parigger. “This allows us to come in and leave a specific area quickly so we can diagnose and attack tumorous cells fast.” The swift, precise technique can avoiding heating up adjacent, healthy tissues and has potential for use in outpatient procedures, particularly for people afflicted with brain tumors. For now, however, the scientists are working with the non-profit University of Tennessee Research Foundation to bring their tech to market. Roll past the jump for the press release and a glimpse of the laser in action.

Continue reading Researchers develop femtosecond laser that can diagnose, blast cancerous tumors

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Researchers develop femtosecond laser that can diagnose, blast cancerous tumors originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 05:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Doctor Evil would be positively giddy at the thought of strapping the laser that has set a world record at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to the head of the shark. The laser at the National Ignition Facility set a world record for the highest power laser shot in history using a collection of beams. The collection of beams delivered over 500 trillion watts of peak power.

The laser used 192 individual beams fired at the same time to deliver 1.85 MJ of ultraviolet laser light. The hugely powerful laser beam was shot at a target only 2 mm in diameter. The laser used 12,500 times more electricity than all of Britain required in 2006. I’d hate to pay the electricity bill.

The laboratory where the record was set was specifically built for testing and designing high-powered lasers. The National Ignition Facility is the world’s foremost laser research center. The laboratory has a goal of creating a laser powerful enough to ignite hydrogen fusion.

“For scientists across the nation and the world who, like ourselves, are actively pursuing fundamental science under extreme conditions and the goal of laboratory fusion ignition, this is a remarkable and exciting achievement,” said Richard Petrasso, senior research scientist and division head of high energy density physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a press release. “The 500 TW shot is an extraordinary accomplishment by the NIF Team, creating unprecedented conditions in the laboratory that hitherto only existed deep in stellar interiors.”

[via Wired]

New laser breaks record for highest power beam at 500 trillion watts is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In an effort to recreate the fusion reaction that occurs in start formation, the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, CA has been building up to some extremely powerful laser shots. Back in March, researchers fired off 411 terawatts, and we know that kind of power doesn’t come cheap. NIF’s latest test shot, fired July 5th, set a new record with 192 lasers producing more than 500 trillion watts of peak power and 1.85 MJ of ultraviolet laser light. Mind you, that’s more than a thousand times more energy than the United States uses at any given moment, not to mention a hundred times more power than other lasers can fire consistently. More record-setting shots are sure to come, and in addition to enabling research on harnessing nuclear fusion, NIF’s mega-lasers are helping inform the design of new laser facilities being built in China, Japan, Russia, France and the UK.

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NIF sets record with 500 TW laser shot, lab-based nuclear fusion not far behind originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Jul 2012 06:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Computers are normally limited by the fixed nature of their chipsets: once the silicon is out of the factory, its capabilities are forever locked in. The City College of New York and University of California Berkeley have jointly developed a technique that could break chips free of these prisons and speed along quantum computing. They found that hitting gallium arsenide with a laser light pattern aligns the spins of the atoms under the rays, creating a spintronic circuit that can re-map at a moment’s notice. The laser could be vital to quantum computers, which can depend heavily or exclusively on spintronics to work: a simple shine could get electrons storing a much wider range of numbers and consequently handling many more calculations at once. Research is only just now becoming public, however; even though gallium arsenide is common in modern technology, we’ll need to be patient before we find quantum PCs at the local big-box retail chain. Despite this, we could still be looking at an early step in a shift from computers with many single-purpose components to the abstracted, all-powerful quantum machines we’ve held in our science fiction dreams.

CCNY, UC Berkeley develop lasers that could rewrite quantum chips, spin those atoms right round originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 04:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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