Light,when strongly concentrated, is enormously powerful. Now, or a team of physicists led by Professor Jörg Schreiber from the Institute of Experimental Physics – Medical Physics,which is share of the Munich-Centre for Advanced Photonics (MAP), a Cluster of Excellence at LMU Munich, and has used this energy source with explosive effect. The researchers focus high-power laser light onto beads of plastic just a few micrometers in size. The concentrated energy blows the nanoparticles apart,releasing radiation made up of positively charged atoms (protons). Such proton beams could be used in future for treating tumors, and in advanced imaging techniques. Their findings appear in the journal Physical Review E.
Source: phys.org