Can a Raser Amplify Radioactive Rays Like a Laser?

[desert fox]

Nice to meet all of you

We know that laser is amplified light.

There's possible if amplify the radioactive ray (alpha, beta, or gamma) with the same procedure like the laser mechanism?

 

[russ_watters]

Gama rays are electromagnetic - like light - and could theoretically be amplified in the same way (though I suspect it wouldn't be practical due to the short wavelength).

Alpha and beta radiation are particles and you can't amplify a particle.

 

[tiny-tim]

Welcome to PF!

Hi desert fox! Welcome to PF!

Alpha and beta radiation are particles and you can't amplify a particle.

Hi russ!

Alpha particles are bosons, so why couldn't we amplify a beam of them in the same way?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Alpha particles are bosons, so why couldn't we amplify a beam of them in the same way?

(1) Charge conservation.

(2) How are you planning on creating a population inversion?

 

[Redbelly98]

"Matter lasers" happen to be an active area of research, in the laser cooling / BEC research community:
http://everything2.com/e2node/atom%20laser

It isn't necessary to actually create particles, you just need to amplify the number of particles that are in a specific state, using an available reservoir of the particles.

 

[russ_watters]

I stand corrected!

 

[daschaich]

Gama rays are electromagnetic - like light - and could theoretically be amplified in the same way (though I suspect it wouldn't be practical due to the short wavelength)...

Just for fun, I searched through Wikipedia looking for the phrase "gamma-ray laser" and found a couple more exotic possibilities -- using excited nuclei in the place of excited atoms, or using positronium annihilation. It all seems very speculative, but possibly more practical than trying to apply the standard procedure to such short wavelengths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_gamma_emission

 

[Redbelly98]

I stand corrected!

On the other hand, this is cold, low-kinetic-energy matter being used for matter-lasers. Not what you typically find as radioactive decay products.

 

[desert fox]

Are the product of Gamma ray amplified more dangerous than the ordinary gamma ray?

 

[Redbelly98]

If they existed, I imagine gamma rays from a gamma-laser would be more dangerous just as laser beams are more dangerous than ordinary light. Mainly because the energy would be more concentrated.

 

[Cthugha]

The main problem is the lack of sensible mirrors in the gamma range.
Free electron lasers however are able to produce light in the vacuum UV to soft x-ray range and even a bit beyond (see for example FLASH at the Desy in Hamburg). The drawback is that these lasers rely on self amplified stimulated emission, which uses just the emission of microbunched electrons going through an undulator once. Therefore the amplification is there, but the coherence time is very low.

 

[LURCH]

Low coherence time = short range / rapid dispersion?

 

[Cthugha]

Low coherence time = short range / rapid dispersion?

Coherence time is defined by the inverse spectral width, so low coherence time means most of all, that the emission is spectrally rather broad as the coherence times can be as low as 0.3 fs.
The temporal profile of the intensity will also show a lot of spikes. See for example the Desy-FEL page here for what the beam looks like: http://hasylab.desy.de/facilities/s...rotron_radiation_to_a_sase_fel/index_eng.html