- Nuclear laser
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Not to be confused with Nuclear pumped laser.
A nuclear laser is a laser that would depend on the excitation of atomic nuclei to produce electromagnetic radiation.No such laser exists yet as of April 2011.
Eugene Tkalya of Moscow State University in Russia has proposed, on 22 April 2011, a path for achieving this.
Contents
Description
Ordinary atomic lasers produce electromagnetic radiation when an atom or molecule drops to a lower energy level, transferring its energy to that radiation.They produce visible, ultraviolet and infrared light, or X-rays, but not the very energetic gamma rays.
To produce gamma ray lasers, researchears have studied the nuclei. A nuclear laser would produce radiation when excited nuclei would drop to unexcited states.But, as a first step to achieve a gamma ray laser, Tkalya imagined a nuclear laser which would produce visible light. To create the population inversion necessary for the laser effect, Tkalya proposes applying either a strong magnetic field of about 100 tesla or a strong electric field gradient of about 10-18 volts per square centimetre to nuclei of thorium.
Uses
A nuclear laser could be used for measuring time and for other things.
References
- David Harris (22 April 2011). "Laser from Atomic Nuclei". American Physical Society. http://focus.aps.org/story/v27/st16. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
External links
Categories:- Lasers
- Nuclear physics
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