kW isn't that high for pulsed lasers. Particularly since with Q-switching you ca... | Hacker News

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		aidenn0 on May 31, 2013 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Can You Power a Phone With a Capacitor? kW isn't that high for pulsed lasers. Particularly since with Q-switching you can get very short pulses and mode-locking ridiculously short pulses. Total energy for a 1ps pulse at 100kW is negligible.

pbo on May 31, 2013 | [–]

Exactly. Since the output is not continuous, the average power remains quite low. This is why you can still power it from regular domestic power :)

acomar on May 31, 2013 | [–]

You get some nasty ionization effects with shorter pulses, right? I did some work trying to model a fs pulse laser in college.

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