100 Kilowatt Laser Takes Us that Much Closer to SyFy Phaser Technology
100 Kilowatt Laser Takes Us that Much Closer to SyFy Phaser Technology
Posted 03/23/2009 at 7:57am
| by Paul Lilly
12
Comments
Print
Weapon laser design reached an important milestone thanks to defense contractor Northrop Grumman, who reported it got a solid-state laser to fire a 105.5 kilowatt beam, the most power light ray yet created by an electric laser.
"Our modular JHPSSL design makes it straightforward to scale laser weapon systems to mission-required power levels for a variety of uses, to include force protection and precision strike missions for air-, sea- and land-based platforms," said Dan Wildt, vice president of Directed Energy Systems for Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems sector."
Wildt went on to underscore the importance of the achievement saying that "the 100kW threshold has been viewed traditionally as a proof of principle for 'weapons grade' power levels for high-energy lasers." Noting that there are many military applications that can be achieved with laser weapons of 25kW or 50kW, Northrop Grumman's achievement ensures power scaling won't be a problem for some time to come.
The high-power laser demonstration operated at above 100kW for over 85 minutes using seven laser chains. By adding an eighth chain, Northrop says it will be possible to increase laser power to 120kW.
(Image Credit: Northrop Grumman)
Tags:
More like this
mariatudor
December 17, 2010 at 11:01pm
This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I love seeing websites that understand the value of providing a quality resource for free. It is the old what goes around comes around routine
BaggerX
March 24, 2009 at 7:30pm
First thing I thought of when I saw this article was the movie Real Genius :) Could make a whole lot of popcorn with that thing...
Keith E. Whisman
March 23, 2009 at 2:18pm
Paul Paul Paul.... You did that on purpose didn't you? And what bothers me is that it's such a huge misspell and hardly nobody has said anything about it. SciFi... LOL... Good One Paul...
Now that is funny.
BroadSide
March 23, 2009 at 12:50pm
Sure, Let's see Kirk stuff that badboy into the pants of his spandex starfleet jumpsuit.
Keith E. Whisman
March 23, 2009 at 9:05am
Isn't this the same technology that opened the door for alien invasion in Half Life?
AntiHero
March 23, 2009 at 9:20am
I believe so to an extent, however didn't you know Gordon Freeman is a real dude? (perhaps different name)
I seen an image about that big bang theory machine in europe (don't know much about it as you can tell) but there's a guy there that looks like gordon, let's hope he's in the reactor when it goes down...
Fubie
March 23, 2009 at 5:03pm
I want the man portable version. Where the hell did I put those copper tops?
:)
Fubie
Connect with MaximumPC
Featured Content
We introduce Intel's latest class of tablet killers and review 4 of the first Ultra...
Where have all the memorable videogame enemies gone?
This month's issue
Feature
11 Hardware Hacks
Feature
Overclock Your CPU
How-To
Supercharge Your Smartphone
Build It
A Powerful $830 Rig
Most Commented Articles
Latest Max PC Tweets
- maximumpc: Analysts: 9-Inch Kindle Fire This Summer http://t.co/QDYApwCZ2 hours 56 min ago
- maximumpc: Micron: DRAM Prices Likely as Low as They're Going to Get http://t.co/fFUWuFOm5 hours 53 min ago
- maximumpc: Yar, Mateys! All Of Pirate Bay Made Available As A Single 90MB Zip File http://t.co/j5LHlXEZ7 hours 7 min ago
