The USS Portland test-fires a laser weapon. The photo captured infrared light to make the beam visible.
Staff Sgt. Donald Holbert/Marine Corps via AP
Militaries around the world are rapidly developing science fiction-like laser weapons, motivated in part by the growing threat from swarms of drones.
Dragonfire laser system test firing.
UK Ministry of Defence/wikipedia
Operating the DragonFire laser system for ten seconds costs the equivalent of using a heater for an hour (less than £10 per shot).
Attosecond light pulses help researchers understand the movement of electrons.
Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics recognized researchers studying electron movement in real time − this work could revolutionize electronics, laser imaging and more.
The author’s lab’s ultrafast optical switch in action.
Mohammed Hassan, University of Arizona
A researcher explains developments in using light rather than electrons to transmit information securely and quickly, even over long distances.
TRW INC / AP
Militaries around the world are scrambling to realise the ‘God mode’ of invulnerability and infinite ammunition promised by laser weapons.
Laser energy being converted into X-rays inside a box, which compress a fuel capsule until it implodes.
LLNL
Huge challenges remain before working fusion reactors are possible.
Aerosol plumes from commercial toilets can rise 5 feet above the bowl.
John Crimaldi/Scientific Reports
Toilets eject aerosol droplets that may carry disease-causing pathogens. Learning about how these particles move could help reduce exposure in public restrooms.
A powerful enough laser beam could blind spy satellites.
MuthuKutty/Wikimedia
Build a powerful enough laser, and you can shine it into space. Aim it well, and you can blind satellites.
The interior of the nuclear fusion reactor at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
A US laboratory has announced an exciting new leap forward in nuclear fusion, but it may be several decades before we see this form of energy come to fruition.
Cern scientists have successfully cooled antimatter with a laser for the first time.
Chukman So
Laser-cooling enables new measurements that could explain why antimatter is so scarce in our universe.
Shutterstock
New research fired laser beams on tiger snake scales, and found arsenic was 20-34 times higher in wild wetland snakes than in captive snakes.
Shutterstock
A new laser technique that measures the chemical make-up of whisky may help fight cancers.
Original artwork by Ludmila Odintsova
For 60 years, physicists thought they knew exactly how coherent a laser could get. Now the ultimate quantum limit to laser coherence has been found, and it’s much much bigger than anybody thought.
A conceptual schematic of a laser-based method for identifying the coronavirus quickly.
Penn State University
A team of physicists, virologists and computer scientists are seeking to develop a coronavirus diagnostic tool that could deliver rapid results.
edobric/shutterstock
Following announcements by France and the US, NATO is expected to start using space weapons.
Laser treatment may need to be repeated for permanent hair loss and isn’t for everyone.
from www.shutterstock.com
How well laser therapy works depends on your type of hair and skin, the type of laser and the skill of the person operating it.
A cross section of a fractal pattern, created by a laser in the Wits Structured Light Laboratory.
Wits University
Nature can produce fractals, computers can, too. Could light be a fractal? The answer is yes.
Physics laureate Donna Strickland receives the prize from King Carl Gustaf of Sweden during the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10, 2018.
(Pontus Lundahl/Pool Photo via AP)
The winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics says scientists shouldn’t feel pressured to do research that has economic or commercial ramifications. Science for the sake of science is more important.
Maryna Stamatova/Shutterstock
Using lasers to trap and move particles changed the way we’re able to study microscopic life.
The 2018 Nobel Prize for physics recognized discoveries that can make more powerful lasers.
The Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to three scientists for the inventions of optical tweezers – in which two laser beams can hold a tiny object – and a method for creating powerful lasers.