Photo credit: Marcin Szczepanski, Michigan Engineering
University of Michigan’s ZEUS laser will become the most powerful in the United States when it’s complete. Researchers are prepping the ZEUS (Zetawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System) laser to send its first pulses into an experimental target in hopes of exploring the physics of the quantum universe as well as outer space.
Not only will ZEUS be the highest peak power laser in the US, but one of the most powerful laser systems in the world. The first target area set to be up and running is the high-repetition target area, which conducts experiments with higher frequency, but lower power laser pulses. ZEUS will send infrared laser pulses into a gas target of helium, turning it into plasma. This plasma then accelerates electrons to high energies, and those beams will start wiggling to produce very compact X-ray pulses. If you need something a bit more powerful for warfare, there’s the US Navy’s electric laser weapon.
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We could see every little organ as well as the tiny micro hairs on its leg. It’s very exciting to think of how we could use these laser-like X-rays to do low-dose imaging, taking advantage of the fact that they’re laser-like rather than having to rely on the absorption imaging of the past,” said Franklin Dollar, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California Irvine.
