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When lasers cross: A brighter way to measure plasma
- February 5, 2026 at 10:00 PM
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Measuring conditions in volatile clouds of superheated gases known as plasmas is central to pursuing greater scientific understanding of how stars, nuclear detonations and fusion energy work. For decades, scientists have relied on a technique called Thomson scattering, which uses a single laser beam to scatter from plasma waves as a way to measure critical information such as plasma temperature, density and flow.
Originally published at Phys.org