• Question: what is the most powerful thing that you have used in your research?

    Asked by E_kelleher to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 17 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Matthew Camilleri

      Matthew Camilleri answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      I think that would be the laser I used a couple of months back, trying to aim it at gold nanoparticles. The laser was normally used to cut out metals, so we had to take a number of precautions before firing it at a drop of water which was reflecting light everywhere.

    • Photo: Laura Schofield

      Laura Schofield answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      I have to admit that I don’t use many things I would class as powerful, but I do use NMR or nuclear magnetic resonance. That uses a really strong magnet to work out what kind of environment an atom is sitting in (as in, what other atoms are near it). Before you get to use the machine you have to go through a training course and in that they tell you not to take anything magnetic into the same room as the NMR machine as it will rip it out of your hand because the magnetic field is so strong!

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      I am torn… I have the lasers I used in my postdoctoral research: biggest one I had was a 4-watt infra-red laser. 4 watts of optical power doesn’t sound like much when you are familiar with a “20 W light bulb” but remember that is the power consumed, not the optical power – which for your 20 W fluorescent lamp is about 4 W of “light” (the rest being heat) – but that is spread over the entire room. This was 4 W of light focused onto a tiny pin-prick… the power there was pretty immense. In fact, I managed to burn my hand with it at one point when I wasn’t paying due attention (now *that* hurt)

    • Photo: Francesca Palombo

      Francesca Palombo answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      Probably a super powerful lab-built ultrafast laser for time-resolved nonlinear spectroscopy

    • Photo: Rebecca Ingle

      Rebecca Ingle answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      Andrew, ouch at the infrared laser! They always sound a little terrifying in terms of their output power.

      For me, it’s probably the lasers I use to pump my dye lasers – one of them is malfunctioning a little at the moment and is giving about 8 Watts of power out which risks burning all our mirrors and my hands too if they end up in the beam.

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