Scientists Carlos Hernandez and Quentin Salter, who are involved in the development and creation of a prototype of the ship's laser cannon, demonstrated to reporters what the US Navy's new Free Electron FEL (FEL) injector is capable of. The injector, which is essentially the heart of the FEL (it is designed to pump a laser beam), showed a record power, having worked at a voltage of 500 kilovolts for 6 hours. According to one of the scientists, Quentin Salter, they themselves were surprised by the unexpected success. He also stressed that these successful tests will significantly accelerate the creation of a prototype ship's laser cannon. The US military and scientists have been working on this prototype for 6 years now, and now they are very close to success.
Although, before 2020, free electron lasers are unlikely to appear on ships. To date, the prototype produces a 14 kW beam. For combat use, you need a power of at least 100 kW. The 500 kV voltage reached on February 18 means that the development time will be reduced, and the laser's combat lethality will significantly increase.
Carlos Hernandez gave a short lecture to the journalists, explaining vividly on the model of an injector the principle of operation of a free electron laser.
Carlos Hernandez explains how a free electron laser works next to a model injector
By exciting certain types of atoms, photon radiation can be produced. If you reflect it on excited atoms, even more photons will appear. The second batch of photons, unlike, for example, a light bulb, the light from which goes in all directions, can be directed in one direction and have a certain wavelength. However, a free electron laser has a unique feature: it does not use an amplifying medium, only a stream of electrons that pass through a series of conventional or superconducting magnets. This accelerator generates a beam that operates at multiple wavelengths. In practice, this will allow the FEL beam to pass through a smoky battlefield or water vapor-saturated sea air without losing its energy. Also, to increase the power of the laser gun beam, it will be sufficient to simply increase the number of electrons emanating from the injector.
For quite a long time, Jefferson's lab staff worked on the 73rd unit with a 300-kV injector and a 200 kW input power. But now, thanks to the success achieved by Salter and Hernandez, the US Navy is likely to receive a more powerful than expected prototype of the cannon. This will allow more testing of the laser, including studying the possibilities of using new weapons in the fight against sea vessels and in missile defense.
The experienced American combat laser FEL produces the most powerful beam in the world to date, capable of cutting up to 6 m of steel per second. If the American military manages to achieve the intended goal of the project (beam power of 1 MW), the cannon will be able to cut more than 600 m of steel per second. In theory, this simply requires more electrons, the successful tests of scientists Hernandez and Salter showed that this is quite realistic. The size problem is also being successfully solved. The prototype of the cannon is being created by Boeing, it should be ready by 2012, and by 2015 it is planned to build a cannon of compact dimensions 15 × 6 × 3 m. Such dimensions of the gun are suitable even for small ships of the frigate class.
The only open question remains the issue of power supply for megawatt weapons, since ships with a non-nuclear power plant will not be able to provide the required power. But this problem is already being solved. Combat megawatt FEL, if successfully created, will effectively combat hypersonic anti-ship missiles, aircraft and small ships, and hit ground targets. And all this at a distance of 300 kilometers, unattainable for modern artillery.
