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Electric Laser Race Heats Up

The military still doesn’t have a deployable ray gun, but it seems that more and more people are placing their bets on the solid state, electric-powered laser. Not wanting to be left out of the race to field compact battlefield lasers, Boeing announced yesterday that it’s tested its own solid-state laser technology. "In each laser […]

Laser The military still doesn't have a deployable ray gun, but it seems that more and more people are placing their bets on the solid state, electric-powered laser.

Not wanting to be left out of the race to field compact battlefield lasers, Boeing announced yesterday that it's tested its own solid-state laser technology. "In each laser firing at Boeing's facility in West Hills, Calif., the high-energy laser achieved power levels of over 25 kilowatts for multi-second durations, with a measured beam quality suitable for a tactical weapon system," says Boeing.

What's interesting about this announcement is that Boeing is not part of the Defense Department's Joint High-Powered Solid State Laser, a program that has funded Northrop Grumman and Textron to build a deployable laser weapon. Boeing at one point teamed with the Livermore lab on a solid-state work, but that laser, which was powerful but large, was not selected by the program for funding. Similarly, Raytheon also has a solid state laser that was passed over for funding. Both Livermore and Raytheon have continued their solid-state laser work on their own dime, however. Boeing, until this point, did not appear to be that active on solid-state lasers, and it appears this new effort is self-funded.

It's easy to see why companies might invest their own money in solid-state lasers -- this technology is looking like the most practical route to deployable laser weapons, particularly given the difficulties of deploying chemical lasers.

The trend toward solid-state lasers can also be seen abroad. In an interview with Defense Technology International, a former senior Israeli official talks about his country's reasoning behind moving away from chemical lasers for missile defense. He says he expects solid-state lasers to mature within the next 2-3 years (I think that's a bit optimistic, but not impossible).

Boeing's twenty-five kilowatts is far below the estimates of 100
kilowatt-minimum needed for a tactical weapon, and still behind several competitors in the field, but it could be a start, particularly if
Boeing's technology is scalable and compact. Each company has its own approach to solid-state lasers: Textron used a "zigzag" method,
Northrop does beam-combining, and Boeing, for its part, says its laser
"integrates multiple thin-disk lasers into a single system."

While there are high hopes for solid-state lasers, I have yet to see one that isn't sitting on a pretty large laboratory bench. So, it's not just raw power that counts, but the ability of companies to demonstrate technology that can move beyond the lab.

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