Laser? What Laser? Here's The Anti-Laser

[Guest]

Lasers are generally considered as one of the key technologies for future optical computers as well as a wide range of other products, including military applications.

Laser? What Laser? Here's The Anti-Laser : Read more

 

[warezme]

If this is so efficient at absorbing light and converting to heat why not use it to absorb multiple frequencies and have it directly absorb light from the sun and convert it to heat to run a steam engine or similar? A small surface area would produce tremendous heat.

 

[Guest]

Well, the obvious military applications include making coatings for ICBMs and other long-range missiles that make them impervious to being disabled by weaponized lasers, as well as optical sensor protection for all our eye-in-the-sky drones and satellites. Neat.

 

[mike2100]

shields up!

 

[utengineer]

[citation][nom]mike2100[/nom]shields up![/citation]

LOL....classic.

 

[Bolbi]

So... with this anti-laser tech, are the laser weapons of the future DOA?

 

[aznguy0028]

Urgh, curse you scientists for foiling my sharks with head mounted laser plan >:O

 

[maestintaolius]

[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]If this is so efficient at absorbing light and converting to heat why not use it to absorb multiple frequencies and have it directly absorb light from the sun and convert it to heat to run a steam engine or similar? A small surface area would produce tremendous heat.[/citation]
Probably because laser light is a very highly ordered and specialized form of light vs light from the sun.

 

[Guest]

So now you can just coat your ICBMs in this and all those anti-missile laser weapons are useless.

 

[gto127]

"So now you can just coat your ICBMs in this and all those anti-missile laser weapons are useless. "
If device works by converting laser to heat I doubt it would do much good against a super high powered laser simply because there would not be enough material on a ICBM to absorb the tremendous amount of heat of a weapons type of laser. I could be wrong but I would bet this meant for low powered lasers to convert into heat for on/off applications such as processors.. Converting a high powered laser into heat would defeat the purpose.

 

[Haserath]

I wonder how hot this material can get before it breaks down?
Absorbing all of the energy in sunlight and converting it into heat would make this material super hot, it must stop working at a certain temperature.

 

[fuzzyplankton]

Meet my anti laser weapon! It called a mirror.

 

[christop]

Plus 1^

 

[bluekoala]

[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]If this is so efficient at absorbing light and converting to heat why not use it to absorb multiple frequencies and have it directly absorb light from the sun and convert it to heat to run a steam engine or similar? A small surface area would produce tremendous heat.[/citation]

That would make solar heaters a lot more efficient provided this wafer absorbs a wide spectrum of light.

[citation][nom]ilikecoolstuff[/nom]Well, the obvious military applications include making coatings for ICBMs and other long-range missiles that make them impervious to being disabled by weaponized lasers, as well as optical sensor protection for all our eye-in-the-sky drones and satellites. Neat.[/citation]
You want to REFLECT 99.9% of the light instead of ABSORBING it. It would just make your ICMBs a lot easier to shoot down with lasers. Although it would render laser guided weapons useless as they could not see where the laser hits.

 

[fuzzyplankton]

Then just make Chrome plated ICBMs. They would look cool and bounce laser off them.

 

[Guest]

It is funny how you say 'laser' and everyone's brain turns off. Lasers are very VERY frequency specific, thus why they are so handy. No there is no direct way to make this technology make better solar panels. Most solar panels that are useful are photo-electric, they do get hot (cause they are black), but the heat is not what produces the electricity. You can use this material to heat some fluid that you would run as radiant heating in your flooring... but it assumes you could get it to work on broad spectrum, AND broad polarization, but this is nowhere near that kind of tech.
Anti-missile lasers melt the shielding of a missile to make it stop flying... putting something that converts laser light into heat is only going to make the process more effective... but if we can market it to Russia and China then it's OK. Most ani-missile laser tech tries to misdirect the guidance system... a guidance system that (surprise surprise) uses lasers! So just being flat out blind really would not help the situation.
However, this could potentially be used to absorb a cop's Ladar gun, or have potentially (though not nessesarially) great potential in light-based processors to create a whole new way of forming IC elements for light instead of electricity.
Fun article though! I love reading about this kind of 'welcome to the future' stuff. Makes me a lot less disappointed that we don't have flying cars yet.

 

[skyjogger]

what havnt you got your flying car yet? i think it should be in the mail if it hasnt arrived yet ;p

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]It is funny how you say 'laser' and everyone's brain turns off.[/citation]Lasers do that. Keep your lasers handy.
[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]putting something that converts laser light into heat is only going to make the process more effective...[/citation]I know, it's hilarious. Make it so that NONE of the energy the laser is pumping into your missle is wasted/deflected by that pesky metal surface! Maybe they're D&D nerds and they're thinking it's like a "Protection from Lasers" spell. The spell itself absorbs all the damage, right?

 

[eddieroolz]

Anti-laser. Damn, that's some sexy stuff.

I'm holding out for the anti-gravity, though!

 

[Guest]

They should try it with diamond instead of silicon next time; might make it more efficient.