Laser Blast Makes Regular Light Bulbs Super-Efficient 559
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the bright-ideas dept.
from the bright-ideas dept.
guruevi writes with news that a process using an ultra-powerful laser can crank up the efficiency of everyday incandescent light bulbs. Using the same laser process covered several years ago, the tungsten filament has an array of nano- and micro-scale structures formed on the surface making the resulting light as bright as a 100-watt bulb while consuming less electricity than a 60-watt bulb and remaining much cheaper to produce. "The key to creating the super-filament is an ultra-brief, ultra-intense beam of light called a femtosecond laser pulse. The laser burst lasts only a few quadrillionths of a second. To get a grasp of that kind of speed, consider that a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years. During its brief burst, Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire grid of North America onto a spot the size of a needle point. That intense blast forces the surface of the metal to form nanostructures and microstructures that dramatically alter how efficiently light can radiate from the filament."
Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
Laser Blast Makes Regular Light Bulbs Super-Efficient
So that whole time in Star Wars, they were just trying to make each other Super-Efficient? That's a whole lot nicer than what I was led to believe was initially going on.
LASIK makes a lot more sense now too.
I'm learning!
And they will hit the shelves in... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
I think you just redefined "learning". But, it is in line with a lot of the "facts" I've picked up on /.
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
James Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to be more efficient!
super! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
Couple this thing with a few femtosharks, and my high-efficiency evil lair will be complete.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
There's an app for that.
shark (Score:3, Funny)
So does this mean every evil genius lair is now only complete with sharks with freekin' light bulbs on their heads?
Re:Too late (Score:5, Funny)
But... with LEDs you don't get to shoot a powerful laser at a tungsten filament!
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
Well I just learned how femtoseconds work. Thanks to TFS.
Though it might have been more helpfully put if they said that a car travelling at 40 furlongs per fortnight goes 6.652x10^-8 Angstroms in a femtosecond.
Re:Consistency (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Consistency (Score:3, Funny)
Fermentosecond?
Is that the time it takes for me to down a beer?
Or is that the time it takes for hot dogs, baked beans, and doritos to produce their, um, 'gastrointestinal distress signal'?
Re:Energy Savings? (Score:3, Funny)
How many lightbulbs would they need to convert from 100W to 60W usage (over time) to equal the energy cost of 1 femto second laser blast
Dunno, but my guess is that for each lightbulb, it will take at least 3 Slashdotters to screw it in. One to hold the ladder, one to screw it in, and one to explain the significance of a femtosecond.
That's not including the dozen or so other Slashdotters who will want to attend and debate the relative merits of CFLs and LEDs, another dozen who insist they're wrong, a few older Slashdotters who moan about the old lightbulb working just fine, and one guy standing in a corner mumbling something about a government conspiracy while rolling out tinfoil to fashion a head covering.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:3, Funny)
You dont have to dispose of it from coal though, the wind does it for you!
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
The rest goes to feed the sharks.
Re:And they will hit the shelves in... (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but these incandescents contain nanoparticles which are going to reduce our world to grey goo! Fear! The certainty of yet another generation of children subjected to scientifically-proven mercury poisoning is much less scary than the possibility of the destruction of all life on earth!
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:4, Funny)
Couple this thing with a few femtosharks with frickin' femtolasers, and my high-efficiency evil lair will be complete.
There, fixed that for you.
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:4, Funny)
I knew a girl like that in high school. At least, that's what other guys said she'd do but she never wanted to go out with me. Still, D&D was fun.
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:4, Funny)
Though it might have been more helpfully put if they said that a car travelling at 40 furlongs per fortnight goes 6.652x10^-8 Angstroms in a femtosecond.
A person I worked with during the Pioneer 12/13 Venus launch was responsible for a program called "orgeom" (orbital geometry, Fortran 4P on a PDP 11/40 iirc). For a lark, he first computed the trajectory using furlongs per fortnight. Later (I'm sure the two events were not linked) there was a VMS SYSGEN parameter called "IOTA" (an arbitrary value assigning kernel/exec computing time to a process for accounting purposes) somewhere around 4.0 or so that was measured in "microfortnights".
Resolved: Geek humour runs on a 14 day cycle.
Re:And they will hit the shelves in... (Score:3, Funny)
They're not "banned", that makes us sound so draconian. It's just guideline, advice, to anyone who likes their freedom and who likes their hands being attached to the ends of their arms, not to try and buy or sell them... in a friendly kind of a way.