The quest to create nuclear fusion may have come a step closer when scientists heated solid matter to two million degrees with the world's most powerful X-ray laser, a study reported Wednesday.
A team of researchers working at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California used the rapid-fire laser -- a billion times brighter that any other man-made X-ray source -- to flash-heat a miniscule piece of aluminum foil.
In so doing, they created a form of plasma known as "hot dense matter," reaching temperatures hotter than two million degrees Celsius (3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit).
The whole process lasted less than a trillionth of a second.
Gas-like plasma is often called the fourth state of matter after solids, liquids and gases. While uncommon on Earth, it makes up over 99 percent of the visible universe, including the interior of stars such as the Sun.