X-ray lasers

Ed Fok--

If I understand your posting correctly, you are talking about a
thermally emitting plasma, i.e. one that is just radiating because it is
trying v. v. hard to cool down.  I don't think this can be used like a
laser.  The X-rays are emitted in all directions, so you don't get a
beam.  The radiation isn't coherent, which means all the peaks and
troughs of the light waves tend to cancel, reducing the average
intensity.  The idea of a laser is that the light is coherent, so that
the peaks and troughs add.  Also, a laser relies on mirrors to bounce the
X-rays back and forth through the lasing-medium, so that each photon has
plenty of chance to create more photons (leading to the all important
amplification).  The trouble with X-rays is that they are a bugger to
reflect, so by conventional Traveller wisdom X-ray lasers appear at TL
13.

Sorry to put a damper on low-tech X-ray lasers :-)

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