Navy Reports a ‘Breakthrough’ for Its Superlaser

[unhappycamper]

Navy Reports a ‘Breakthrough’ for Its Superlaser
By Spencer Ackerman Email Author
January 20, 2011 | 7:09 pm

One day, the Navy swears, it’ll have a massive laser aboard its ships to fry missiles out of the sky. That day is still years off. But a very excited Office of Naval Research reports that it’s nine months ahead of schedule, thanks to what it calls a “remarkable breakthrough.”

The Navy’s Free Electron Laser program uses massively charged electron streams generated by an injector to focus light across multiple wavelengths, making it more powerful than most lasers. Turning it into a death ray requires at least 100 kilowatts worth of power. So far, the prototype Free Electron Laser that the Navy has can only generate 14.

But now the Navy thinks it’s broken a power threshold. Tests in December of a new injector yielded the electrons necessary to get the Free Electron Laser up to “megawatt class” beams, the Office of Naval Research said in a statement issued today, nine months ahead of schedule. One of the project’s lead researchers, Dinh Nguyen, said in the statement that he hoped to “set a world record for the average current of electrons.”

Getting it on board a ship is still a long ways away. Boeing has a contract to get the Navy a new prototype laser by early 2012. Even with the new injector showing promise, researchers don’t anticipate a shipboard test until 2018.

But the arrival of a superlaser for maritime defense is a potential gamechanger. It would represent a speed-of-light weapon that never has to be reloaded, feeding on a ship’s generator, to burn through incoming missiles or aircraft. And that’s not all: program manager Quentin Saulter told Danger Room in November that the Free Electron Laser can be used as a sensor, a tracker or a guidance system for a ship’s conventional weapons.



unhappycamper comment: I like the artist's rendition on this five billion dollar destroyer. (That popgun on the front needs some help.)

We currently own $10+ billion dollars worth of these things. With three more in the works. :woopie:

[xchrom]

1. recommend - but could someone explain in layman's terms

exactly what they're talking about with power and those beams of light.

i mean i know what a laser is -- but i thought the notion of a laser weapon was really done for.

[bananas]

2. "That day is still years off."

'nuf said.

[xchrom]

3. ...

:spray: i guess i deserved that.

[Statistical]

4. Lasers are pretty simple concept, they concentrate the energy density of light.

Light has energy; when you stand out in the sunlight you skin gets warm. That is the thermal energy of sunlight you feel. If you increase that energy density by a factor of 10 it would be painful. If you increase it by a factor of 100 it will cut through steel (eventually). If you increase it by a factor of 1000 it would pierce the armor of a target and ignite internal components (fuel, explosives, ammo, etc) within seconds.

Industrial lasers are used today cut/melt metal and other hardened materials. The only difference between industrial and weapon application of a laser is energy density. An industrial laser can have lower power density because it can operate over larger period of time (energy is power over time). Taking a few minutes to cut metal in a shop isn't a real problem. A weapon that takes 3 minutes to destroy an incoming missile however isn't useful. As you increase the output of the laser you decrease the time it takes to pierce the target. More technically since energy is power over time (E=P*T) raising the power reduces the amount of time necessary to deliver the same amount of energy.

Essentially all weapons are energy delivery systems. Deliver enough energy into an object in a rapid enough period of time and you wll destroy it.

A directed energy weapon (Laser) is simply a mechanism to increase the energy density on the target (in the case of lasers it is thermal energy) to a point where it can be destroyed, to do that effectively requires more power than an industrial laser.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Suberb description

Turning the technical into the understandable is a rare skill. Kudos to you

[Javaman]

6. ZOT! You're gone. nt