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1. 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.
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