Hercules Mega Laser – Focus the Sun on a Grain of Sand

The Hercules laser has a ridiculous amount of intensity. As a comparison you need to picture a huge magnifying glass above the earth which would focus all the sun’s light to one grain of sand. That would almost represent what the Hercules laser is capable of. The Hercules laser takes up several rooms and contains 300 terawatts of power (which is 300 times the capacity of the US power grid). I personally found the TechLasers laser pen a tad crazy and not practical for every day use although it is very cool. So, you might be wondering what you would do with a 300 terawatt laser. It is able to focus it’s beam on to a 1.3 micron speck which is tiny. This may be capable of being used for medical reasons such as better ways to treat cancer and other complex things.

It works by using a titanium sapphire laser then bounces off a lot of mirrors and gets refracted, reflected and what not till it can focus the beam in to such a tiny space.

Via: SparkingTech