RE: [HoE] Lasers (was: More confusion on Junkers)

["Phalen, Patrick" <pphalen@avionics.itt.com>]

>Well, lasers don't use bullets, thats the only advantage I can see.  If
you're
>out of bullets or don't want to bother buying any, then lasers would be the
>way to go.  But then what kind of ammo do lasers use anyway? 

Gas.  The main component in a laser is a gas tube which contains gas (Argon,
Helium-Neon, Krypton, YAG, etc.)  The gas in the tube is excited which
created light energy (I promise not get into quantum physics)  One end of
the tube has a highly reflective surface, the other end has a 95-97%
reflective chamber.  The light bounces back and forth picking up more and
more energy (both from the excitement and the KE created from the collisions
with other light particles).  This energy eventually goes through the less
reflective end of the tube.

The big advantage of a laser is that the light doesn't diffuse (compare a
flashlight beam to a laser beam to see what I mean), so that all of the
energy is focused on a point.

There has also been a lot of work done using solid sources for lasers to
generate obscene amounts of power, but there isn't too much "open" info to
be found on those!

Pat