High-efficiency photonic furnaces for metal production

A photonic furnace for producing a metal product from a precursor material, the photonic furnace comprising:

• a reaction chamber;
• a precursor material inlet providing access to the reaction chamber;
• a product outlet adapted to facilitate retrieval of the metal product from the photonic furnace;
• a preheating chamber connected between the precursor material inlet and the reaction chamber;
• one or more light sources comprising a diode array, the light sources producing a light beam having an emission wavelength shorter than about 600 nm, the light beam of the one or more light sources being focused by one or more lenses to a beam impact area disposed within the reaction chamber or the preheating chamber, such that the focused beam of the one or more light sources provides a substantially uniform power density at the beam impact area, sufficient power density to raise a temperature of the beam impact area to at least a reaction temperature of the precursor material within less than about 5 seconds, the beam impact area being configured to facilitate conversion of the precursor material to the metal product.