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A comment on Pulsed terawatt lasers have surprising effects when shone through the air (2006). Parent comment

Re:Pulsed terawatt lasers have surprising effects when shone... by aaron-santos on Friday May 27, 2016 @02:05PM (#11787752)
I love the idea of generating two parallel beams and leveraging the conductivity of plasma as a sort of "wireless" taser. It's likely not feasible (I'm guessing someone has tried it), and it would be interesting to know why.
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Re:Pulsed terawatt lasers have surprising effects when shone... by kragen on Friday May 27, 2016 @02:19PM (#11787847)
It's called an "electrolaser": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser. There are reports that they work in practice, but not yet well enough for use. I don't know why.
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Re:Pulsed terawatt lasers have surprising effects when shone... by street on Friday May 27, 2016 @02:16PM (#11787825)
I suspect being hit by the beams might harm the victim, with the electricity just being a bonus. I doubt the laser generators are cheap and portable as well.
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Re:Pulsed terawatt lasers have surprising effects when shone... by rdtsc on Friday May 27, 2016 @02:53PM (#11788088)
It has an EMP potential to fry electronics probably.
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Re:Pulsed terawatt lasers have surprising effects when shone... by dmitrygr on Friday May 27, 2016 @03:22PM (#11788272)
The laser power might kill the victim, but using this for actually sending electricity might work. Might be a good replacement for high power lines in some cases.
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