Still a third extreme is the speed of light. ![]() These brilliant x-ray lasers will be used to irradiate complex biological molecules with a brief x-ray flash, thereby capturing crucial details about their shape in order to learn what makes them so efficient as they carry out the processes of life. ![]() During the next decade, new facilities will use electron beams from accelerators to create x-ray lasers a billion times brighter than our best present sources. A different kind of extreme is the wavelength of the light. The enormous electric fields present at the focus of one of these beams completely overwhelm the forces that bind electrons in atoms and molecules, leading to exotic states of matter that are usually found only in stars, hydrogen bombs, or particle accelerator collisions. Lasers in the next decade will have powers exceeding a million billion watts-equivalent to the entire electrical power consumption of Earth concentrated in a single beam of light for a millionth of a billionth of a second. What happens when light is pushed to extremes? Focused laser beams are the best way to concentrate and control energy.
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