Markus Kayser has a very interesting project, called SolarSinter, where he is using the energy from the sun to fuse sand into glass. This is very thought provoking as it utilizes two very ubiquitous things solar energy and sand. While the printer does not has very high precision at the moment, it does appear to have potential for additional automation and refinement.
A very interesting thought would be using these on a planet, like Mars, to fabricate buildings from local materials and solar energy. The biggest question would be if the sand on Mars would sinter.
Nice :D I’m in love if some focusing is made with the heat.
Cool ! we can build brick on far away planets now ! :-)
I wonder what it would take to collimate and refocus that beam into a pinprick, if you can do that, we could have cheap “laser” cutters with loads of power, and if you put them in an array you could have even more power *mad scientist laugh* You could forgo the power requirements and expense of giant laser tubes and use the sun (provided you get enough of it)
The sand on mars can be sintered.
Ideanator, we have the tech to do just that, you supply the laugh!
there actually is such a thing as a solar-pumped laser, for example
http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=30649