In what could the scientific discovery of the century, researchers, aimed a Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at a capsule of neon gas, setting off an avalanche of X-ray emissions to create the world’s first “atomic X-ray laser.”
“X-rays give us a penetrating view into the world of atoms and molecules,” said physicist Nina Rohringer, who led the research. Rohringer is a group leader at the Max Planck Society’s Advanced Study Group in Hamburg, Germany.
Rohringer collaborated with researchers from SLAC, DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Colorado State University.
“This achievement opens the door for a new realm of X-ray capabilities,” said John Bozek, LCLS instrument scientist. This, of course, is an understatement!
Scientists say that until 2009, when LCLS turned on, no X-ray source was powerful enough to create this type of laser. "The LCLS, with its ultra-short wavelengths of X-ray laser light, is the first that can penetrate a dense solid and create a uniform patch of plasma--in this case a cube one-thousandth of a centimeter on a side--and probe it at the same time," says Bob Nagler of SLAC, an LCLS instrument scientist.
“This is brand new. The implications are enormous”, says Brandon Hyatt of Charlotte, N.C. who experiments with laser light technology for possible use in military weapons systems. “We can only imagine what will come from this new breakthrough”, he said.
MILITRAY APPLICATIONS OF THE X-RAY LASER (BACKGROUND)
The concept for x-ray lasers goes back to the 1970s, when physicists realized that laser beams amplified with ions would have much higher energies than beams amplified using gases. Nuclear explosions were even envisioned as a power supply for these high-energy lasers. That vision became a reality at the time of the Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s, when x-ray laser beams initiated by nuclear explosives were generated underground at the Nevada Test Site. From fiscal years 1986 through 1993, SDI0 spent $138 million for nuclear directed energy technology.
The Lawrence Livermore program to research nuclear-pumped x-ray laser systems accelerated after President Reagan's "Star Wars" speech to introduce the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1983. Teller thought such a laser system would provide a shield for the United States against Soviet missiles. He championed the x-ray laser effort and numerous other R&D activities, including guided antimissile missiles called Brilliant Pebbles.
Livermore's Novette, the precursor of the Nova laser, was used for the first laboratory demonstration of an x-ray laser in 1984. In the early 1980s, researchers were exploring how to produce x-ray laser beams initiated by nuclear explosives at the Nevada Test Site. At the same time, success was achieved creating a soft-x-ray (about 200 angstroms) laser in a laboratory setting using the Novette laser, which was a test bed for the design of Nova. Nova became operational in December 1984.
One of the weapons that had been considered under President Reagan's SDI program was a nuclear powered X-ray laser. It would have been powered by a small nuclear explosion that produced a pulse of intense X-rays. Therefore, the weapon could not be placed in orbit, installed on a celestial body, or station in space under the Outer Space Treaty. Even if the United States could use such a weapon without it being orbited, installed, or stationed in space, and thus not subject to the literal Article IV prohibitions, the United States still would have to show the world community that the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty was not violated.
In its 1984 directed energy plan, SDIO planned to pursue the development of nuclear directed energy to provide a base of knowledge that would permit the United States to better judge potential Soviet capabilities and to provide the basis for a ground-based or pop-up nuclear directed energy capability should it be needed at some point for the strategic defense system follow-on phases… SDIO'S contributions included theoretical computational research along with contributions for diagnostic packages for Department of Energy underground nuclear tests and related laboratory experiments.
SDIO and the Department of Energy have conducted a cooperative program that has included mission analyses as well as exploring system engineering concerns.
Based on their understanding of the physics of an X-ray laser, LLNL scientists developed computer models, which were used with other means to predict the results of underground tests. If the results of an underground test agreed with the predictions, LLNL scientists concluded that they generally understood the physics of how the aspect being measured worked. If there were significant differences, this meant that the physics were not well understood. In general, quantitative means that the results were "close" to the predictions, and qualitative means the results were "not as close."
A CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT
The X-ray laser is important to the SD1 program because the final SD1 design could depend upon whether the x-ray laser is feasible. If the Soviets could build an X-ray laser, then the survivability of American space assets could be questioned.
Therefore, the United States would have to design its ballistic missile defense system to either survive or counter a Soviet X-ray laser attack. X-ray lasers have several potential military applications including counter-defense, booster kill, post-boost vehicle kill, reentry vehicle kill and discrimination of reentry vehicle decoys.
RUSSIAN WORRIED ABOUT POSSIBLE MILITARY APPLICATIONS
In Russia, scientists for the Ministry of Defense are scrambling to determine if this critical breakthrough is something that could be exploited. “Certainly there is a lot of interest in the news of any development of X-ray lasers of the type and kind recently announced at the scientists the other day. It caught many of us here in Moscow off guard as we thought this was only theoretical. You can be sure that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is scrambling agents to gather information on this particular project”, said one Russian military official speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“Much of the information on this project will be open source and available for collection by various intelligence agencies” said Killian Moore of Charlotte, N.C. a private counter intelligence agent that freelances for major corporations and protects trade and scientific secrets. “You can bet that military scientists around the world are taking notice at this, including China and Russia”, he said.
Robert Tilford
Charlotte, N.C.
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