Femtosecond Projection Two-photon Lithography (FP-TPL) printing technology increases the printing speed by 1,000 – 10,000 times, and reduces the cost by 98%. It controls the laser spectrum via temporal focusing, the laser 3D printing process is performed in a parallel layer-by-layer fashion instead of point-by-point writing. This is a technological breakthrough that leads nanoscale 3D …
This is an update of the system under development by John Brophy and his team and it will use a kilometer-scale, multi-hundred-megawatt phased-array laser to beam power to a vehicle that converts it to electrical power for a multi-megawatt electric propulsion system that produces a specific impulse of 58,000 s. This will enable velocities of …
There is a NASA NIAC study to improved laser pushed sails with advanced diffracted solar sail. Advanced diffractive films may afford advantages over passive reflective surfaces for a variety space missions that use solar or laser in-space propulsion. Three cases are compared: Sun-facing diffractive sails, Littrow diffraction configurations, and conventional reflective sails. A simple Earth-to-Mars …
Nature materials -Materials challenges for the Starshot lightsail A solar sail able to be pushed by lasers to 20% of light speed would need to be about 10 square meters but weigh less than a gram. The sail will have to average out to being 100 atoms thick yet still be able to transmit the …
Nature materials -Materials challenges for the Starshot lightsail A solar sail able to be pushed by lasers to 20% of light speed would need to be about 10 square meters but weigh less than a gram. The sail will have to average out to being 100 atoms thick yet still be able to transmit the …
Les Johnson of the NASA Marshall Space Center provides a 37-page presentation on solar sails covering the technical details, past projects and future projects. Near-term work is with various cubesats and solar sails. Near Earth Asteroid Scout The Near Earth Asteroid Scout Will • Image/characterize a NEA during a slow flyby • Demonstrate a low-cost …
A new process called Laser Wire Direct Closeout (LWDC) was developed and advanced at NASA to build a less-expensive rocket nozzle in significantly less time. LWDC is a different process than most 3-D printing technologies, which are powder-based and fabricated in layers. It uses a freeform-directed energy wire deposition process to fabricate material in place. …
State-of-the-art techniques make it possible to build a spin-chain quantum simulator based on laser-trapped circular Rydberg atoms. This simulator combines the flexibility of atomic lattices and the individual atomic observable read-out typical of ion trap, together with the strong dipole-dipole interactions of Rydberg atoms. Defect-free atomic chains can be prepared by an evaporative cooling method, …
Dramatic advances in laser technology are close to making the two-laser approach feasible, and a spate of recent experiments around the world indicate that an ‘avalanche’ fusion reaction could be triggered in the trillionth-of-a-second blast from a petawatt-scale laser pulse, whose fleeting bursts pack a quadrillion watts of power. If scientists could exploit this avalanche, …
Two recent scientific breakthroughs have opened a new way to laser fusion reactions according to startup HB11 Energy. It involves the reaction between hydrogen H and the boron isotope 11 (HB11) as uncompressed solid state fuel within an extremely high trapping magnetic field. Both of these conditions have been demonstrated by experiments and following predictions …
