Chinese breakthrough allows physicists to build the world’s most powerful laser

[superadmin]

• Technological leap would allow the firing of a laser 10,000 times more powerful than all the electricity grids in the world combined
  
• With this development, the Station of Extreme Light could aid research in new materials, drugs and nuclear fusion energy
  

A research team in Shanghai has achieved a technological breakthrough to allow them to build the most powerful laser on the planet.

The leap means they could fire a 100-petawatt shot in about two years, a scientist involved in the project told the South China Morning Post on Tuesday.

That single pulse would be 10,000 times more powerful than all the electricity grids in the world combined.

In the incredibly brief but intensive flash of light, humans would witness materials coming from nothing for the first time.

Liu Jun, a member of the Station of Extreme Light (SEL) project with the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics
, said increasing the power of a laser beam was not easy.

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