This is how other sapphire-based laser pointer can break the power record using only devices installed in a large room and costing tens of millions of dollars. In comparison, it costs $ 3.5 billion and requires a 10-storey building that is the same size as three American football fields. Once the laser builder has solved the power problem, another challenge will come: bringing the beam into an extremely dense focus.
Many scientists care more about intensity—the power per unit area than the total wattage. Achieving more accurate focus positioning means that the intensity of laser pointers increases. If a 100PW pulse could be focused on a spot with a diameter of only 3 micrometers, the intensity of this tiny area would reach a staggering 1024 watts per square centimeter-about 25 orders of magnitude higher than the intensity of sunlight shining on the earth.
This strength provides the possibility to break the vacuum state. According to quantum electrodynamics theory that describes how electromagnetic fields interact with matter, vacuum is not as empty as classical physics suggests. On extreme time scales, positron-negative electron pairs born due to the uncertainty of quantum mechanics are formed. However, due to mutual attraction, they almost cancel each other out as they form. However, in principle, super-powerful lasers separate particles before they collide.
Like any electromagnetic wave, a laser beam contains an electric field. As the intensity of the laser pointer beam increases, the intensity of the electric field increases. The former director and current dean of the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences said that at an intensity of 1024 watts per square centimeter, the electric field will be strong enough to begin to break the mutual attraction between some positron and electron pairs. The laser field then vibrates the particles, causing them to emit electromagnetic waves—in this case, gamma rays.