Laser Weapons

The concept of using light as a weapon has intrigued weapon designers, for centuries. The first such system hypothesized was the Archimedes heat ray. Maiman operated the first functioning laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.

HISTORY

In civilian applications, lasers would soon grow in power. With the ability to focus kilowatts of energy onto a small point, their use in industrial welding and cutting expanded rapidly. Though their initial military use, however, has been more indirect, being used primarily for range finding, targeting, and ordnance guidance. The first use of lasers to damage targets directly were laser blinding weapons.

Because relatively low energy levels could permanently blind combatants, their use led to the Protocol on Laser Blinding Weapons in 1995. Lower powered systems intended to temporarily blind or disorient its target, called dazzlers, are still in use today by both the military and law enforcement. Laser systems that directly use highly focused light as a ranged weapon to damage a target are part of a class of arms known as Directed Energy Weapons or DEWs.

TACTICAL LASERS

One of Boeing’s technology demonstrator consists of a modified "Avenger" air defense vehicle with a laser DEW in place of its missile launcher. As a laser source, this system uses a commercial 2 kW solid-state laser and has demonstrated its effectiveness against unmanned aerial vehicles as well as explosive devices on the ground. "Another, more powerful, tactical development by Boeing is "The Relocatable High Energy Laser System or RHELS. Raytheon has replaced the cannon with an industrial fiber laser, successfully testing the concept against a variety of targets, including incoming mortar rounds.

This heat has to be transported out of the solid-state medium, in order to avoid overheating and destroying the laser. Additionally, the non-uniform temperature distribution within the amplifier causes a higher than ideal beam divergence of the resulting laser beam, reducing the delivery energy per target area. Fiber lasers, in particular, are ideal for weapon use due to the ends of the fiber itself being used to form the laser resonator. One notable example has been Northrop Grumman’s Joint High Power Solid-State Laser program, which has produced beams in the range of 100kWs.

STRATEGIC LASERS

Power levels at this magnitude are predominately achieved by chemical lasers, a focal technology of all strategic military laser programs. Chemical lasers work by using a chemical reaction to create the beam. The involved reactants are fed continuously into the reaction chamber, forming a gas stream, which functions as the light amplifying medium for the laser. Because the gas stream is continuously being produced while spent reactants are vented out of the laser, excess heat does not accumulate and the output power is not limited by the need for cooling.

The Advanced Tactical Laser or ATL and the Airborne Laser or ABL have been the two most notable chemical laser DEW programs in recent years. What makes both of these programs so unique is that they are the first aircraft-based laser DEWs. The ATL is a technology demonstrator built to evaluate the capabilities of a laser DEW for "ultra-precise" attacks against communication platforms and vehicles. Powered by a Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser or COIL, it’s speculated that it’s beam is capable of up to 300 kW.

Of all the laser DEW programs explored, the ABL system is arguably the most prominent and recognizable. Built around a Boeing 747 designated as YAL-1, ABL is also powered by a Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser, though one large enough to produce a continuous output power well into the megawatt range. In addition to the incredible power of its main laser, the ABL also features an adaptive optics system, which is capable of correcting the degrading influence of atmospheric turbulence on the laser beam. On March 15, 2007, the YAL-1 successfully fired it’s laser in flight, hitting its target, a modified NC-135E Big Crow test aircraft.

By February 11, 2010, now fitted with a more powerful laser, in a test off the central California coast, the system successfully destroyed a liquid-fuel boosting ballistic missile.

Laser defense systems such as the US Navy’s XN1-LaWs, deployed on the USS Ponce and the Israeli Iron Beam air defense system are being used experimentally for low-end asymmetric threats. Though these systems are modest compared to the promises of the multi-billion dollar programs of years past, costing less than one dollar per shot, the versatility of these smaller, less expensive, laser DEWs may prove to be the future of the technology.

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