You could still make a laser bazooka.

Wasn't saying you couldn't do that either.

Though keep in mind that a stronger laser won't necessarily be a bigger laser. It'd just be more intense. The gun itself might be bigger though.

Rapid fire lasers would be interesting, and would be an emp + bullet combo... we need someone to use theses!

Well, they don't necissarily have to be emp weapons (though they could be), they just happen to be powered BY strong emps internally.

Like a shockwave-grenade powered railgun? It isn't an EMP but from the way it pulverises troops I'd love to see that used as a railgun or sniper rifle.

Seeing as how this could be used like an EMP type weapon It should do more dmg against robotic/cyborg actors right?

and You might also want to consider making just an EMP that makes dropship engines stop working (could be carried as a grenade) they would just fall down outa the sky and smash all their lovely contents on the ground

It could be used for anything that requires a short, powerful burst of energy. The article linked states that the burst approaches the energy range of a lightning bolt.

Yes, you could just as easily turn this into an grenade-type weapon as well. Just take the same concept and make it so the EMP is released all around it, as opposed to being channeled into a larger mechanism. It's like a little nuke, minus the nuclear part. I bet you could even set it up so it also released shrapnel and a regular shock wave, since there's still conventional explosives involved. That'd be a boss grenade.

Edit: I've been wondering about some numbers regarding what kind of output is considered "weapons grade," and I found out. Apparently any laser that has an output beyond 100kW is considered to be potentially weapons-grade, and that's the low end. Modern lasers aren't terribly efficient though. I read about one that's 20% efficient, so it requires a 500kW input to get that 100kW output.

But! Explosively pumped generators can already produce terrawatts with a man-portable unit. So even now this isn't too much of an issue, and in the future it can only get better.

Hey, I just wanna know if this is at all possible. Basically a laser/beam based weapon, that when it impacts its target, creates nuclear fusion/fission, causing a small nuclear explosion. It would just be pumping ridiculous amounts of energy into a target, so my basic understanding of fission assumes that it would be enough to excite the atoms suffieciently to cause fission. The reaction would be understandably innefficient enough to keep going for any real amount of time without the beam fueling it.

Tl;dr: Is it possible by the laws of physics to make a beam weapon that explodes like a nuke when it hits?

Congratulations, you have described the Buster rifle (at least, in my definition). I don't think such a reaction is possible, because most armor-grade materials aren't unstable enough to fissure like in a nuclear reaction. A beam of such power is most likely to vaporize the material, causing a large explosion in the process. Maybe not like a nuke, but a fairly large explosion (about the size of a box of HE grenades going off).

According to some guy in the discussion page for this page on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_weapon

"Finally, particle projection cannon are your best hope for any kind of “plasma cannon”-like long range projectile that can do any significant damage. The concept is based on using a compact particle accelerator or other nuclear reactor to create a high density cohesive particle clouds that have the potential to cause “spontaneous” fission, fusion, and/or accelerated atomic decay on impact with any solid object. In theory they can be guided with high energy ultraviolet lasers, have a range of several miles, and could carry a TNT equivalent energy potential of anywhere from several pounds (no nuclear reaction) to in excess of a ton (causes fission/fusion). The critical issues are finding a particle source and a power supply, one possible method is accelerating several pounds of matter to the speed of light but even an FCG can't produce enough power but a series of them might be able to - a BattleMech's fusion reactor would be ideal. In a small arms rifle variant, this would probably look something like a “pulse fire” version of the “unlicensed nuclear accelerators” used in the movie Ghost Busters, backpack and all."

Not sure on the reality of this, but it's something.

Power's not much of a issue for what I have in mind. Just wondering if a beam of craploads of energy hitting something would do much besides melt, vaporize, or explosively decompress it.

Well, fission happens when you hit one atom really really hard with a particle, or another atom. Just a laser might not work (photons being weird as they are), but some kind of powerful particle beam might. The PPG described in my previous post is just another way of getting particles to a target, it seems, where its fired in a slower-moving ball, rather than a light-speed beam.

Also, I wasn't suggesting you should worry about power.

It would likely be more efficient to just launch a missile with a nuclear warhead anyhow, unless you absolutely need to hit your target at the speed of light.

Well then, I guess I'm going particle beam. As for a nuclear missile, I have an abundance of energy, not fissile materials and distance from the target.