According to a recent report on the website of Popular Mechanics magazine, the U.S. Army is developing the most powerful laser weapon to date. This latest weapon, named the “Tactical Very Short Pulse Laser” (UPSL), is one million times more powerful than previously used weapons and can produce 10,000 billion watts of energy in 200 femtoseconds (one femtosecond is one trillionth of a second).
The new laser weapon is based on technology that emits short, intermittent pulses, according to a recent report in the British journal New Scientist. Although the technology is already in use in the laboratory, the U.S. military wants to make the technology powerful enough to target long-range targets, such as Drones or missiles.
Until now, existing laser weapons have been continuous-wave lasers, devices that fire a continuous beam of energy at a target, heating the target’s surface until it melts. The first such weapon was manufactured by the U.S. Navy in 2014 and has been continuously improved to form the Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) system, a laser device installed on warships that was tested in May last year.
The new weapon UPSL looks like a laser that only appears in Science Fiction movies, emitting a bullet-like pulse of light. And, compared to the LWSD, which can produce only 150 kilowatts, the UPSL can produce 10,000 billion watts of energy in 200 femtoseconds.
Most laser weapons fire a continuous beam until the target melts or catches fire, but the UPSL, like a laser burst, is more like a blaster (blaster) from the science fiction movie “Star Wars” and is powerful enough to vaporize rather than melt metal.
The study says that ordinary lasers are ineffective over long distances because the beam spreads, but the ultrashort laser can be converted into an automatic gathering pulse of light that turns air into a lens, thus constantly refocusing the pulse. And it’s so powerful that instead of melting the target, it instantly vaporizes it. In fact, several industries already use the technology to pierce metal very precisely – only at very short distances.
In addition, newer weapons will also use lasers to create an electromagnetic pulse effect (EMP). When attacking a metallic target, the laser pulse rapidly accelerates electrons, and the moving charge generates enough RF energy to destroy nearby electronics. This phenomenon has also been verified in the laboratory, and an EMP powerful enough to shoot down a drone or missile by disrupting its control system.
The New Scientist report confirms that a prototype of the weapon has been commissioned to the U.S. company Aquastar, which must deliver and demonstrate the device in August next year before the U.S. military decides whether to proceed with the development of the weapon.
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