Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 12 May 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news060508-14
News
Record-breaking laser is hot stuff
The record for the fastest rise in temperature has just been topped.
With the heat of a burning sun, a laser pulse has ripped through pure sapphire, heating it faster than any explosion ever recorded.
The experiment was a blast, say physicists who reckon their laser can drive temperature increases of a billion billion (1018) degrees per second, although they could only keep it going for a couple of hundred femtoseconds (with a femtosecond being 10-15 s).
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
There are currently no comments.
