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I know the researches are enthusing about materials science applications of this new tiny X-ray emitter—a nanoscale synchrotron radiation source—but I look at the world in 2025 and I just think, "drones with X-ray lasers coming to an urban battlefield near YOU!"
https://phys.org/news/2025-11-tabletop-particle-medicine-materials-science.html
There's a lot of subjunctive, "concept stage", and "in simulations" there.
Doesn't "QUASAR Group" make for a good, innocuous sounding, military-industrial complex corporation name, though? (-:
@JdeBP Translation: they're looking for Series-A funding (or something like that). Not necessarily with any expectation of delivering a product: but it's nice work, if you can get it.
The same thought crossed my mind. (-:
Although the disclosure statement on the original article at https://doi.org/10.64628/AB.rkrnyke4r says otherwise.
It's such a cyberpunk name, though. A quick search turned up that there was indeed a Japan-industrial #QuasarGroup from at least 1974 to 1983. Originally part of #Motorola it was sold to #Matsushita and in 1982 was selling a #MOS6502 hand-held computer that ran MS BASIC and a variant of #FORTH called snapFORTH.
@cstross "Desktop" scale X-ray generators have been a thing since ... 1970s?
I was using a *neutron* generator in a 4in OD package in 2010, maybe earlier.
It *halved* the number of high-intensity radioactive sources we needed to ship in 15 tonne lead-lined bunkers.
@cstross “The future we were promised is already here, it’s just focused into a very tight beam.”
@cstross I just think, "... Service Module separation at 138 hours uhh 2 minutes 8 seconds."
@isaackuo What's that a reference to?
@cstross Apollo lunar missions - the Service Module separates from the Command Module before atmospheric reentry.
(Audio specifically from Apollo 13 mission.)
@cstross Guess it's time to upgrade the hat from tin foil to lead.
@cstross
It’s the Easy-Mutate Oven.
@cstross X-ray lithography might be interesting for chips.
@rbanffy @cstross If it was useful, they would already be doing it. They don’t need portability, and the current e-beam machines already cost 100s of millions, so cost isn’t a factor.
I’m not certain they can get much smaller than 1 nm nodes that are already coming.
The problem is all of the heat they make.
Maybe as a phased array/emitter array it might work? 🙂🤷♂️
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