Homebrew laser pistol that shoots neat holes in stuff

Here's a working, homebrewed 1MW laser pistol that can fire through a steel razor-blade and possibly other objects as well. If you want to make one of your own, the creator will help you find the parts and get it all together.

German hacker [Patrick Priebe] recently constructed a laser pulse gun that looks so good, it could have easily come off a Hollywood movie set. Its sleek white and black exterior adds intrigue, but offers little warning as to how powerful the gun actually is.
Fitted with a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser, it fires off a 1 MW blast of infrared light once the capacitors have fully charged. The duration of the laser pulse is somewhere near 100ns, so he was unable to catch it on camera, but its effects are easily visible in whatever medium he has fired upon. The laser can burst balloons, shoot through plastic, and even blow a hole right through a razor blade.

You'll shoot your eye out...with a 1MW laser pulse pistol (Thanks, Caleb!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

boy that sure is neat
PrettyBoyTim

Wow. I’m glad I spend that 75cr on Ablat, although I wish I could afford the 1500 for Reflec.
holtt

Clearly this post deserves an award from The Pew (pew) Research Center for the People & the Press.
Anonymous

It just makes a little click sound when fired!

It should makes a FRAZOW! or SKREEOW! sound.
- Anonymous
  
  that’s not a fucking laser beam PEW-PEW!
Anonymous

This gives a new meaning to laser tag! They should sell these pulse laser guns at the store.
Anonymous

Those freeze-frames of the pulse actually look like they make a pew-pew sound.
And I just made the pew-pew sound when I watched it.
Felton / Moderator

Might this Death Ray of yours not also have some, well, some military application?
- robulus
  
  Heh heh heh.
Anonymous

Would I be protected if I wore reflective armor?
alrdesign

I totally read that as Hebrew Laser Pistol. And was very intrigued to find out what made it Jewish.
- Neural Kernel
  
  See how the lens is set out in the front with absolutely no coverage by the main casing? Heh… unshielded emitter…
- Posteriormente
  
  Maybe he used a kosher laser!
kpkpkp

A lot of people see him destroying balloons and think, yeah, well, okay – he can pop a balloon. But if you have ever had to deal with balloons in high places – I used to work at a convention center – that device would be pretty handy!

Our semi-solution was to use a battery powered UZI water pistol to wet the balloons, making them heavy, and then have someone grab them once they landed, as the UZI shooter would be on a catwalk.

This device would be better because 1) a single person could do the job and 2) no water, but i would be a bit concerned about collateral damage – but not much, as it doesn’t seem overwhelmingly damaging.
- Anonymous
  
  why don’t you just inflate another balloon with tape on the top of it and a long string and use it to stick onto the balloon you can’t reach? that’s what i used to do at work.
- robulus
  
  This device would be better because
  1) a single person could do the job and
  2) no water, but i would be a bit concerned about collateral damage – but not much, as it doesn’t seem overwhelmingly damaging.
  
  3) Going around the convention centre shooting down balloons with a laser gun would be FUCKING AWESOME.
lilomar

Ok, this has convinced me. We are definitely living in the future!
Wickedashtray

use of this that came immediately into my head : retribution to certain loud individuals in movie theaters.
- RedShirt77
  
  I don’t think they allow ballons in movie theaters.
  
  maybe he can program it to burn “shut up” into their foreheads. assuming they wear eye protection.
  - Wickedashtray
    
    I would think that a short burst to the back of their necks would be enough to get the message across…
RedShirt77

He seems to need to work on the range a bit, but this is really really cool.

I am surprised he was able to resist the urge to include a laser pointer for sighting.
judonerd

This is the same sorta thing eye doctors have been firing at your eyeballs for fifteen years.

The reason almost everything he shoots is black (ballon, charred wood, painted aluminum) is because that allows the material to absorb the light energy better (as opposed to reflecting it back out).

But damn it looks awesome.
- Brainspore
  
  This is the same sorta thing eye doctors have been firing at your eyeballs for fifteen years.
  
  But now they’ll be able to shoot from the hip.
holtt

this would be wicked dangerous fun…
Noodle

I think that should be kW..
Anonymous

37 comments and not one PewPew joke? I’m ashamed

Also PewPew.
Anonymous

I would like to know. How to build one
George William Herbert

If I do the math right, that’s a 0.1 joule energy pulse.

That’s not all that impressive by weapons standards, even laser weapons.
- Anonymous
  
  I thought you did the math wrong, but I double checked myself and it really is 0.1 joules. There’s must be a mistake in the article
- RedShirt77
  
  I would imagine most laser weapons to date have a cord running out the back that runs to a wall socket.
- osmo
  
  Well when the US military research teams starts posting videos of their work on youtube, we’ll let you know
alllie

I can see fighting the future is gonna involve a lot of burns.
- RedShirt77
  
  Now we know why in old science fiction movies they wear all those silver reflective jump suits. They were ahead of their time.
  - chortick
    
    Must… resist… Paranoia reference. Ah, what the heck, you’re called “RedShirt77″ after all… you’re safe until someone comes along with an Orange laser.
    - RedShirt77
      
      The name is a Star Trek reference, So I am pretty much doomed, regardless of the ray gun’s color.
      - Donald Petersen
        
        The name is a Star Trek reference, So I am pretty much doomed, regardless of the ray gun’s color.
        
        Hell, even non-ray-gun-wielding foes would keep you from venturing outdoors. What if there’s a Horta lurking underneath your front porch?
Anonymous

Sure, but does it work on Zombies?
Davidget

Lane told me Badger was a smart kid.
jtropp1

Lasers over a certain strength are illegal in the US (for respectable reasons like the danger they pose when fired at the eyes of aircraft pilots).
As bassackwards as it seems, given the current strength of 2nd Amendment interpretations, shouldn’t any laser be legal so long as it’s not a pointer but a GUN?
I wonder if that logic could be applied to anything else… “Officer, it’s not a ferret, it’s a FERRET-GUN!” [squeezing pet to eject food pellets]
- Anonymous
  
  No, they’re not illegal to own. They’re illegal to buy and sell
  
  There is no criminal law or civil law against owning a laser of any strength, but there are FDA regulations regarding the sale of them.
i_prefer_yeti

“Three-legged dog, why are you in town?”

“I’m looking for the man who shot my paw!”
Anonymous

Actually, pulse lasers destroy material through a completely different mechanism than traditional beam lasers. By depositing large amounts of energy in a very short time frame (a few nanoseconds), the overall energy usage is kept down while the peak energy level is quite high. When the pulse hits material, it destroys the chemical bonds in an explosion–those puffs of smoke are micro detonations. Being white or reflective would have little to no effect on the destructive power of a pulse laser. The next step is hitting an object with a multiphase pulse, chaining a few dozen discharges a couple milliseconds apart. It’s basically a laser jackhammer.

Once bigger power densities are figured out, and the issue of cooling issue is handled, these will be in battlefields. Who knows when that will be, though.
- hadlock
  
  Since the laser pulse disrupts/detonates chemical bonds, does this mean that pure elements (brick of 99/99% pure solid gold, solid aluminum etc) would be more impervious to this type of “weapon” than an alloy that is 33/33/33%? Alternately, wouldn’t a coat of paint be enough to stop most pulse lasers? The paint would vaporize, leaving the steel (95%+ iron) plate unhindered.
George William Herbert

Large lasers aren’t illegal in the US, no. Industrial lasers and laser diodes (100 watts a bar, multi-KW systems) are available off the shelf, with credit cards.

And laser weapons tests of MIRACL and the ABL testbed laser are available online already, including blowing up some small missiles and drones in flight and an old Titan ICBM fuel tank on the ground.

Those are chemical lasers, not electrical, so there’s no cord per se, but they’re also not entirely self-contained which was the real point.
Mark Crummett

I know what I want for Christmas!
Posteriormente

I miss the sound FX! Lasers are better in movies!
ackpht

The time span during which the laser pulse energy is delivered makes a big difference in how it interacts with the target material. With a shorter pulse and higher dE/dt (even if E is small) the laser adds energy to the target material far faster than the target material can conduct it away, so the area of the laser spot gets very, very hot and the material boils.

The device described here would qualify as CDRH class IV (the highest class there is), which means that even diffuse reflections are dangerous to the eye (to say nothing of specular reflections or direct exposure). It can cause severe burns to skin and it can ignite flammable materials- paper, wood, clothing, etc.

Anyone messing around with this without proper eye protection- or anyone around them without proper eye protection- is risking serious injury.
- Anonymous
  
  You mean the Laser Gun is *dangerous*?!
cinemajay

The blast effect looks like something out of Logan’s Run–moreso than ‘Wars or ‘Trek.
Baron Karza

Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed.

The ability to destroy a balloon is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
danegeld

One of the horror stories of Lab Lore is about an accident involving a Q-switched infrared laser, where a mirror fell over on an optical bench and delivered a pulse right into someone’s eye as they walked into the lab. The beam focussed, boiled the liquid in this woman’s eye and straight-out burst one of her eyeballs in her head… not cool. Now it’s forbidden to balance mirrors with blue tack for this reason. .. That said, it’s fun to zap things… but goggles. without scratches. qualified for the right wavelength… wear them. would goggles protect you here against a direct strike? probably not…
2k

Controlled
Radiation
Emission
Weapon