Timeline for Would it be plausible for a laser weapon to pass through glass and retain its destructive power?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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| Jun 30, 2022 at 0:38 | comment | added | user91320 | A good answer to the question, but naïve. Firstly you talk about using borosilicate glass or quartz, would these be reasonable choices for an underwater dome? Can lasers be made to penetrate any kind of glass? You also talk about the glass being clean, remember this is an underwater dome, would marine growth affect the situation? How about 50 meters of water? Is there a frequency that can pass through all this water, marine growth, and the glass? Do we need a protocol of using lower powered lasers to slowly clear marine growth and clean the glass ready for bombardment? | |
| Jun 29, 2022 at 15:37 | comment | added | Chris H | @DanHanson OTOH if you use a big beam where it passes through the glass, focussed on the target, the power density can be far lower, as can the thermal stress. You would either need a very big dome (to give a long focal length) or lasers located very close to it (to give a wide cone) so this is pretty limiting . | |
| Jun 29, 2022 at 13:24 | comment | added | Trish | in other words: The fingerprints left by the guy leaning against the window result in the window starting to melt there. The melting window becomes opaque to the laser and melts the building. Also, melting glass is crazy hot - it's almost worse than metals if it wasn't so viscous. | |
| Jun 29, 2022 at 2:28 | comment | added | Dan Hanson | We are talking about lasers capable of destroying a city. In standard glass, if even a tiny fraction of the energy is absorbed it will instantly obliterate, I would think. A little impurity would heat up fantastically, causing melting which would increase the size of the absorbing area. Repeat until destruction. If the world has magic, perhaps a spell cast by the bad guys that makes the dome 100% transparent to laser light. That would work. | |
| Jun 29, 2022 at 0:00 | comment | added | Jon Custer | Of course, your laser was also passing through a thick piece of glass called the gain medium (well, glass or crystal depending on the specific laser). | |
| Jun 28, 2022 at 23:28 | history | edited | L.Dutch♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 28, 2022 at 20:04 | comment | added | Rurudo | Thank you both for the feedback! It's sounding like it wouldn't be a very feasible method of attack since the conditions for it to work would have to be so perfect that they would seem contrived. | |
| Jun 28, 2022 at 19:44 | comment | added | AlexP | The only thing they need to keep in mind is that the glass has to be clean . . . and thin. (As any photographer will know, several centimeters of glass will easily absorb a significant fraction of the light; at the power of weapons-grade laser, those few percent will have an interesting effect.) The only two things they need to keep in mind is that the glass has to be clean and thin . . . and with parallel surfaces. (Or else it will act as a lens.) A glass dome at the bottom of the ocean will most likely be quite thick, curved, and not made of optical-quality glass. | |
| Jun 28, 2022 at 19:35 | history | answered | L.Dutch♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |