AAWSAP DIRD, State of the Art and Evolution of High-Energy Lasers, March 2010

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State of the Art and Evolution of High-Energy Laser
Weapons
Summary
The laser was invented in 1960, only 49 years ago, and (along with the light­
emitting diode) has evolved into an essential part of our modern every-day life
in ways that could not have been foreseen. On the military side, there have
also been incredible advances in laser and beam control technologies but no
deployment of any high-energy weapons. Many concepts have been developed
and pursued, only to be discarded or deferred owing to technical immaturity,
expected production cost, lack of apparent utility, or logistics concerns.
The most significant technical impediment to deployment may have been the
large quantities of expensive and hazardous chemicals that were required by
the only available high-average-power lasers. This is now changing with
recent advances in electrically powered lasers (both solid-state and free­
electron lasers). As these devices mature over the next few decades, they will
enable practical military weapons at power levels ranging from kilowatts to
megawatts. This evolution may be somewhat slowed or limited in the United
States if there are policy concerns about the use of new types of weapons or
about weaponization of space. As an example, the Department of Defense
developed a microwave device for crowd control, called Active Denial, which
has been shown to produce temporary pain without any injury. However, DoD
was precluded from deploying it owing to policy (not legal) concerns. Other
countries may not exhibit similar restraint, as evidenced by the open
marketing of laser-blinding weapons despite a 1980 Geneva Convention
prohibiting their development or use.
Space offers the ideal environment for laser beam propagation; there is no
atmosphere to either attenuate or spread the beam. As a result, large
distances could be bridged quickly, with range limited by the size of the
transmitting telescope and the potential damage mechanisms limited primarily
by the laser's output power. Initial spacecraft laser weapons are conceivable
within the next 20 years, with the potential for follow-on growth in laser
power and transmitting telescope size. Transmitting telescope size would be
limited by the spacecraft size and competing demands for weight and volume.
Laser power could grow to the megawatt range as solid-state and free­
electron laser technology matures, but the major limitation to a spacecraft's
weapon capability may prove to be its ability to generate and store the energy
required by the laser and to store and dissipate the resultant waste heat.
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