X-ray laser fires most powerful pulse ever recorded

The most powerful pulse of X-rays ever reported has been produced on the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. In solely 440 billionths of a billionth of a second, or attoseconds, it packed almost a terawatt of energy – a thousand instances greater than the typical yearly output of a nuclear energy plant.

“In the near term, it will be hard to do better,” says Agostino Marinelli at SLAC, who labored on the mission.

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