Hacker News Reader

That’s assuming they ever even make it to net positive energy output. The article carefully avoids mentioning that the lasers they use are wildly inefficient. It is very hard to break even when you lose 90% of your input power right at the start

View on HN

But the relevant question is, how efficient are equivalent modern lasers? NIF was built in the early 2000s and laser technology has advanced quite a bit in the past couple decades.

The lasers they use are extremely specialized, since they have to deliver outrageous amounts of power for a very short period of time. Advancements in normal lasers may not be of much use here

Edit: Wow, looks like they have improved considerably

Yes, and lasers that do exactly that have advanced very quickly. We're up to multi-petawatt picosecond lasers now. We're getting high repetition rates instead of the once or twice per day of NIF, by using laser diodes in place of flashlamps. There are dozens of extreme laser facilities operating or under construction all over the world. And if I'm not misinterpreting this, efficiency is as high as 60%:

https://www.laserfocusworld.com/lasers-sources/article/14186...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com