DIY Laser Pistol Shoot 1MW Blasts

An anonymous reader writes "It doesn't get cooler than this — a German hacker put together a 1MW laser pistol capable of shooting straight through a razor blade with a single pulse. Quoting: 'Fitted with a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser, it fires off a 1 MW blast of infrared light once the capacitors have fully charged. The duration of the laser pulse is somewhere near 100ns, so he was unable to catch it on camera, but its effects are easily visible in whatever medium he has fired upon.'" Update: 03/17 18:22 GMT by T : Too bad; turns out it's "only" 1KW, rather than 1MW. I still want one.

Re:infrared? bogus.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's a stormtrooper: you don't need to see the shots to know that the answer is "close enough to add drama; never close enough to kill an important character, despite these guys being the Empire's crack infantry forces..." In a universe ruled by narrative causality, ontology is an excellent substitute for empiricism...

Re:Sweet

[gstoddart]

Did he add a sound modulator that makes the PEW sound every time he squeezes the trigger?

He likely didn't need to ... I suspect the squeals of glee followed by maniacal laughter suffice for the time being.

Re:Total energy

[slim]

That's about the same amount of energy as lifting a 100 g
chocolate bar 10 cm vertically in the air....

... focussed on a tiny point -- it doesn't say how tiny.

Imagine attaching a needle to that 100g chocolate bar, then dropping it point-first at your hand, from a 10cm height.

Re:Talk about cool

[Local ID10T]

30797 fatal crashes occurred in the United States in 2009. Do you really want to add the risk of falling out of the sky to that?

Yes. More so if I can shoot them out of the sky with my laser pistol :)

Re:Wrong power

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck is the matter with you guys??? He's got a cool, hand-held -laser gun- that shoots holes in stuff. Who gives a damn about "log10(4200), blah, blah, blah"

It's like a friend's just got laid by a Victoria's Secret model (this is for argument's sake, so shut up) and the discussion devolves into an argument about the velocity of the ejaculate.