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The most powerful laser in the US recently produced 2 quadrillion watts of power
(news.engin.umich.edu)
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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No the laser didn't produce anything the laser is powered by a power source, and that power source produced that much energy.
It's like saying that an ultrasonic saw produces power, no it doesn't, you already have to have that power to feed into the ultrasonic saw.
The laser didn’t generate 2 quadrillion watts like a power plant would generate electricity, but it delivered that much power in an extremely short pulse, like 20 quadrillionths of a second.
That means the energy it delivered was relatively small (a few hundred joules), but because it was delivered in such a tiny time window, the power (which is energy per unit time) was immense.
The laser did produce power, in the form of intense light and heat, over a very small time period. It converted 2 quadrillion watts of electric energy into a very brief laser pulse.
That's not strictly true.
Chemical lasers absolutely generate their own power, you're thinking of electro-optically excited lasers.