If a device considered the most powerful laser on the planet were installed in something like a Gundam, I would feel worried. However, everything seems in order. The laser is not on the arm of a giant mecha, but rather it is part of the Institute of Laser Engineering at the University of Osaka, and it measures just over 90 meters. The shot lasted barely a picosecond, but its power is what turns this laser into a world record: Two petawatts.
Death Star, Death Star… how much energy did the Death Star use to destroy Alderaan? The calculations we find floating on the Web take the Earth as an example, and the number equals all the energy generated by our Sun… for a week. If we introduce antimatter into the exercise, the values reach more reasonable parameters… but let's be honest here: There is no Death Star, there is no antimatter, and our laser beams are nothing compared to the "technological terror" of the Empire, not even the laser of the University of Osaka, called by its managers the most powerful in the world.
Its official name is LFEX, acronym for Laser for Fast ignition EXperiments, and with its integrated observation device, it measures just over 90 meters. Work on the laser (more precisely, the amplification devices) finished in the last months of 2014, and the result is a shot with a chilling two petawatts of power (2 x 10^15 watts). Now, in terms of energy, the situation is very different. The shot lasted only one picosecond (1 x 10^-12 seconds), so the amount of energy would have been enough to run a microwave for two seconds. From that point of view, the achievement of the LFEX may not seem so impressive, but we must not fall into that trap: It is a hundred times the energy of its direct competitors, and double the power.
What comes next? The researchers are already working on a new upgrade for the LFEX, which will bring the power to ten petawatts. The decision responds to a kind of race among the most important universities in the world, which seek to increase the performance of their laser systems. I imagine that these new levels of power will open the doors to all kinds of exotic experiments… or at least, to an extraordinarily costly way of burning things.
Source: Source
