Laser Ship Defense Milestone
At Los Alamos National Laboratory
in New Mexico, scientists in the Office of Naval Research’s Free-Electron
Laser (FEL) program have achieved a breakthrough in ship protection. They demonstrated
an injector that can produce the electrons needed to generate megawatt-class laser
beams for the Navy’s next-generation weapon system. They are working to measure
the properties of the continuous electron beams and hope to set a world record for
the average current of electrons. The FEL is expected to provide future US Naval
forces with a near-instantaneous laser ship defense. The laser works by passing
a beam of high-energy electrons generated by an injector through a series of strong
magnetic fields, causing an intense emission of laser light. The Office of Naval
Research hopes to test the FEL in a maritime environment by 2018.
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