Can a biological laser exist?

We know that Earth creatures can generate high-voltage electricity (your nearest electric eel can attest to that). We also know that ordinary air at Earth atmospheric pressure can be used as a laser gain medium -- this is used in Transverse Excitation at Atmospheric pressure (TEA) laser designs. While not capable of CW output, such a laser can produce pulsed output at a high enough frequency to be practically equivalent to a CW laser, in addition to being operated in a single pulse mode.

This leads me to the question, similar to this but for land-bound creatures: could a creature on land generate a laser pulse without the need for assistance from non-biological structures (such as the finely spaced optics used in the chemically pumped GFP-laser cell)? Furthermore, how much power could they feed such a bio-laser with?

is a duplicate

This question has been asked before and has already been answered. It should be marked as a duplicate.

Please enter the URL of the proposed duplicate in the details field below.

not constructive

This question cannot be answered in a way that is helpful to anyone. It's not possible to learn something from possible answers, except for the solution for the specific problem of the asker.

Communities

Can a biological laser exist?

0 comment threads

0 answers