Lockheed's new laser

There used to be a lot of talk about neutral particle beams.
Are you familiar with this technology?

Probably three or four things to get it working, I could take a guess:

1. Free electron laser
   
2. Supercapacitors (graphene based?)
   
3. Fluidic lenses (uses index of refraction on the fluid boundary of different gases swirled in a vortex chamber)
   
4. Small fusion reactor, something like CSTAR (Compact Spheromak Transient Arc Reactor) concept
   

The type of laser in 1 should be obvious. And 2 will have the high current discharge needed for 1. Item 3 allows fast focus, and although it's using consumables there's no expensive high-quality optic to burn out. And 4 is necessary if you want this to be portable on something smaller than a navy ship and have a fast refresh rate.

Of course it's all speculation on my end, but all those things are interesting ideas being proposed and not just some entirely random things I made up.

Oddly enough, I think a mini version would be a rather neat garage project. (If only I weren't too broke to try. Having it work might PO' the wrong people though.) Enough descriptions on the internet to get an idea of how the necessary components work. Even the fusion reactor could be considered a glorified sparkplug when reduced to the most basic principle. Just some of the materials may be tricky to work out, but I doubt they're that exotic. Most of the cost of the things I could think of goes into precision machining and high-quality components/materials.

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
There used to be a lot of talk about neutral particle beams.
Are you familiar with this technology?

the easiest way to make a neutral particle beam is with a two step process. first you want to work with charged particles because you need to be able to control the particles in order to direct and focus thier direction of travel and to be able to accelerate them. this is easy to do with charged particles and impossible to do with neutral particles. but charged particles can be defended against easily for that very reason. so....

what you do is do the accelerating, concentration and directing around and aiming while the nuclei are not neutral. but as they are leaving the "barrel of your particle cannon you de-ionize them by adding electrons until the atom is in a neutral state. so after they are on their way being neutral particles which cannot be diverted by an electrical or magnetic defense system. also they are maginally more massive with the added electrons.

sure it's not a neutron beam but it is still a neutral direct energy weapon and as a stream of massive particles it carries far more energy than any laser of comparable energy input could.

I remember reading somewhere a few years ago that the US military already created handheld laser weapons for troops. I also heard that in recent years young clever wealthy kids were modifying surgical lasers for outdoor use.

These airplane lasers are designed to hit much harder. Thanks for the article.

originally posted by: BlackProjects
www.fool.com...

It looks like we just took one big step toward laser weapons.