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Posted by Ed Smith
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Thursday, 10 March 2011 18:48 |
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It's something many of us have dreamed about: Owning a laser pistol. Now Patrick Priebe has managed to make one. It fires a 1megawatt pulse of infrared laser light, though only for 200ns or so. It's enough to punch holes through plastic, burn wood, and even punch through thin aluminum!
"Fitted with a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser, it fires off a 1 MW blast of infrared light once the capacitors have fully charged. The duration of the laser pulse is somewhere near 100ns, so he was unable to catch it on camera, but its effects are easily visible in whatever medium he has fired upon. The laser can burst balloons, shoot through plastic, and even blow a hole right through a razor blade."
Source (and picture), as well as a video of the gun in action: Hack A Day
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