On Tuesday, an international team of scientists announced they successfully tested “Bivoj,” a high peak power laser named after a legendary Czech strongman — and boy, they really want you to know it’s really, really strong.
According to AFP, the Czech and British research team say the “super laser” is capable of an average power output of over 1,000 watts, making it “10 times as powerful” as other lasers of its type.
“It is a world record, which is important,” John Collier, director of Britain’s Central Laser Facility, told AFP. “It is good for putting things on the map, but the more important point is that the underlying technology that has been developed here is going to transform the application of these high power, high energy lasers.”
However, the researchers conceded that the laser’s peak output was nowhere near that of others dubbed “the world’s most powerful laser.” Osaka’s Laser for Fast Ignition Experiments, for instance, allegedly produced a pulse of 2 petawatts, or 2 quadrillion watts.
“[Those lasers] have a very high peak power, but they can only reach it several times a day,” Tomas Mocek, director of Czech’s High Average Power Pulsed Laser project, told AFP. “They do not have so-called ‘average power’. This is a combination of the repetition rate and the energy.”
“Our laser has the highest average power, which is important,” he continued. Sure it is, keeping telling yourself that.