China Claims Breakthrough in Laser ResearchScientists at the Shanghai Optical and Fine Mechanics Institute have announced that they have successfully generated 15 trillion watts of electrical power in 0. 035 picoseconds (one picosecond equals one trillionth of a second), on an optical platform of less than 10 square meters.Xu Zhizhan, director of the institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said this success marks a major breakthrough made by China in the research of superpowerful lasers. The electrical power generated by the system is several times more than the capacity of the power grids worldwide combined, he said. The physical conditions in which the powerful laser is produced can be found only in the core of a nuclear explosion, inside a fixed star or on the fringes of a black hole, he added. According to Xu, their research is of critical scientific and application value in physics, life science, and new materials and information technology. China is one of the few countries to have developed such a sophisticated system, Xu said. |
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