Energia-aseet: laser ym.

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Popular Mechanics artikkeli laser-aseesta ja sen menneisyydestä.

There's a technological revolution brewing in warfare. Silent and invisible, it relies on high intensity pulses of light to kill or incapacitate, all at the speed of light. After decades of promises and false starts, lasers are at last finally entering military service. And warfare will never be the same.

The first laser was demonstrated by Theodore Maiman in California's Hughes Research Laboratory in 1960. But it's taken over 50 years to make them practical battlefield weapons, overcoming numerous technological hurdles along the way.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...ary-will-be-revolutionized-by-laser-weaponry/

 

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Researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, that laser light can be used to manipulate a glass optical fiber tapered to a sharp point smaller than a speck of dust, in the middle of an optical fiber with a hollow core. Amazingly, optical forces cause the sharp point, or "nanospike," to self-align at the center of the hollow core, trapping it more and more strongly at the core center as the laser power increases.

"Launching very high power laser light into an optical fiber, especially a hollow-core fiber, can be very difficult and usually requires extensive electronics and optics to maintain alignment," explained Philip Russell, director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany, and leader of the research team.

"This can be accomplished with our new system by simply pushing the nanospike into the hollow core and then turning up the laser power slowly. Once the nanospike self-stabilizes, you can turn up the laser power and nothing will move or get damaged."

In The Optical Society's high impact journal Optica, the researchers report that almost 90 percent of the laser light was transferred from the nanospike to the hollow-core fiber. The new work could increase applications for hollow-core fibers, a new class of fiber that features a hollow core rather than one made of glass like traditional optical fibers. Hollow-core fibers are especially good at handling high-power lasers, making them potentially useful for laser machining and cutting of metals, plastics, wood and other materials.

A sub-wavelength nanospike

To create the nanospike, the researchers started with an ordinary single-mode glass optical fiber about 100 microns in diameter. They heated this fiber so that they could stretch it to form a tapered portion and then etched the fiber's tip with hydrochloric acid to create a nanospike around 100 nanometers in diameter - smaller than the wavelength of visible light - and less than 1 millimeter long.

The researchers created the optical trap by inserting the nanospike into the hollow core fiber and launching a high-power 1064-nanometer laser beam into the single-mode fiber. When the laser light enters the tapered portion of the fiber it begins to spread out beyond the nanospike into the empty space inside the hollow core fiber.

As the taper gets smaller and smaller, the light begins to sense the boundary of the larger fiber core, which causes the light to reflect inwards towards the tapered fiber. This reflected light exerts a mechanical force on the nanospike, forming an optical trap.

"The nanospike is held in place by the light at exactly the right place to perfectly launch the light into the hollow core without any electronics or other systems to keep it in place," Russell said. "If any of the components move a little, there's no effect on the laser light because the nanospike self-aligns and self-stabilizes."

New approach for studying optomechanics

In addition to efficiently coupling high-power laser light to hollow-core fibers, the new system offers an entirely new way to study the mechanical forces exerted by light, or optomechanics, especially at very low pressures.

Scientists want to study optomechanical forces under high vacuum conditions but have been hampered by the fact that, for reasons not yet fully understood, particles tend to jump out of optical traps as air pressure is lowered from atmospheric levels.

"The beauty of the nanospike is that it behaves like a very small particle, but because it is firmly attached to a strong piece of fiber at one end, it isn't lost if it jumps out of the trap," said Russell. "This system allows us to measure forces that are almost impossible to measure in other systems, making it feasible to explore of an area of fundamental physics that isn't very well understood."

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/U...way_to_launch_high_power_laser_light_999.html

 

[BarrelNut]

 

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Photo: iStockphoto

There are plenty of reasons why it’s useful to transfer information through photons or use light particles to carry out tasks within a system or device, speed chief among them. But in order to use photons with even greater dexterity in the future, researchers will need to control the way light behaves as it passes through a material.

One way to do this is by adjusting the material’s refractive index to cause light to travel faster or slower through it. This is a particularly good option for materials that naturally alter their refractive index according to the intensity of light to which they are exposed.

Such materials behave differently depending on whether the light passing through comes from a low-power source or a high-powered laser. These materials are known as optically nonlinear. In the world of photonics, having a higher degree of optical nonlinearity is considered an attractive trait.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/...e-the-material-photonics-has-been-waiting-for

Now a team led by Robert Boyd, a physicist at the University of Ottawa and the University of Rochester, has found that a transparent metal called indium tin oxide (ITO), which is often used in touchscreens and on airplane windows, can achieve a particularly high degree of optical nonlinearity—making it a good candidate for future photonics applications.

This flexibility in the refractive index offers a wider range of potential photon speeds and therefore, a greater degree of control over the photon's functions. It could enable researchers to more easily manipulate photons for a wide range of applications, including microscopy and data processing.

Their sample achieved a degree of nonlinearity that beat that of other materials by factors of 100. For example, ITO’s nonlinearity is about 10,000 times larger than carbon disulfide, a popular reference material, and several hundred times larger than gallium arsenide, a compound semiconductor frequently used in light emitting diodes.

 

[Mikoyan]

Valomiekka;

 

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MBDA Deutschland has developed a rotatable laser effector designed to deploy on various land and sea-based platforms and is integrated with the platform via standardised interfaces. The company is displaying the new system this week at the ILA Berlin Air Show. The new weapon system is especially suitable for defence against highly agile targets such as UAVs, rockets and mortar shells.

With a beam guidance system covering a full hemisphere, the system can acquire targets in a 360-degree operational arc, track and then destroy specific targets using the weapon’s powerful laser beam.

The integrated tracking systems ensure a stable holding point on the target, and thus rapid target engagement. Short engagement times also make this effector capable of defending against swarming attacks such as UAVs attacking from different directions. The mirror optics used are capable of harnessing higher laser power levels than those currently available today.

“In recent years, MBDA Deutschland has invested a significant amount of its own resources into the development of laser technologies,” states Peter Heilmeier, MBDA Deutschland’s Head of Sales and Business Development. He indicated that the new laser effector is a further important step towards an operationally deployable system.

MBDA Deutschland has been working on laser effectors for several years. The company has successfully tested laser effectors in multiple trials against airborne targets such as shells and UAVs as well as other targets.

http://defense-update.com/20160601_mbda_laser.html

 

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The Navy is working with Northrop Grumman Corp. on a three-year deal to develop a ship-board laser weapon engineered to incinerate enemy drones, small boats, aircraft, ships and missiles, service officials told Scout Warrior.

“This system employs multi-spectral target detection and track capabilities as well as an advanced off-axis beam director with improved fiber laser technologies to provide extended target engagement ranges. Improvements of high power fiber lasers used to form the laser beam enable the increased power levels and extended range capabilities. Lessons learned, operating procedures, updated hardware and software derived from previous systems will be incorporated in this demonstration,” Dr. Tom Beutner, director of the air warfare and weapons branch at the Office of Naval Research, told Scout Warrior in a written statement.

The 12-month, $53-million deal with the office will develop a Laser Weapon System Demonstrator through three phases: an initial design phase, ground-testing phase and then weapons testing at sea aboard a Navy Self Defense test ship, a Northrop statement said.

http://www.scout.com/military/warrior/story/1675509-navy-seeks-ship-mounted-laser-weapons

Jos raidetykin konkkapankit ei tule käyttöön raidetykissä, niin jenkkien HEL projektissa ne voivat tulla eloon paljon aikaisemmin.

 

[peelo]

Konkkapankki on ilmeisesti kondensaattori

 

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Jos on epäilystä konkkapankista, niin lue tämä viesti tykistöketjusta http://maanpuolustus.net/threads/tykistö.283/page-272#post-351242

konkkakoppi, kondensaattorikontti, kondensaattoriklusteri taikka energiasäilö kuulostaa kaikki kummilta nimiltä henkilökohtaisesti

 

[peelo]

@ctg mä tiedän mikä on kondensaattori, mutta kaikki ei tiedä. Termillä konkkapankki ei voi tehdä hakua esim kuuklessa, jos et usko niin kokeile ihan huvikseen. Hakutulokset liittyvät konkurssiin menneisiin rahoituslaitoksiin.

Mä itse varmaan käytän paljon teknisiä termejä, mutta yritän tehdä sen kuitenkin niin että ne ovat sellaisia jotka antavat oikeita hakutuloksia hakukoneilla. Tämä siksi että muut pysyy postaamissani jutuissa edes vähän kärryillä.

 

[Mustaruuti]

@ctg mä tiedän mikä on kondensaattori, mutta kaikki ei tiedä. Termillä konkkapankki ei voi tehdä hakua esim kuuklessa, jos et usko niin kokeile ihan huvikseen. Hakutulokset liittyvät konkurssiin menneisiin rahoituslaitoksiin.

Mä itse varmaan käytän paljon teknisiä termejä, mutta yritän tehdä sen kuitenkin niin että ne ovat sellaisia jotka antavat oikeita hakutuloksia hakukoneilla. Tämä siksi että muut pysyy postaamissani jutuissa edes vähän kärryillä.

Selkeys on hyve. Asiayhteys onneksi selventää ettei Arsenalista sentään ollut kyse

 

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Hyvä VTT. Hyvä Suomi. Luulisin, että tätä on mahdollista myös käyttää energia-aseessa.

Tiny supercapacitors that can fit right on a chip have been hotly pursued for at least the last half decade. We’ve seen the usual suspects—graphene, titanium carbide and porous carbon—proposed for making the electrode material for these on-chip supercapacitors.

Now researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have turned to an unlikely material for producing these pint-sized energy storage devices: porous silicon. What have the researchers done to turn this notoriously weak electrode material into a powerhouse? They have found that topcoating it with a nanometer-thick layer of titanium nitride makes all the difference.

“Porous silicon without a coating is an extremely poor supercapacitor electrode material,” explained Mika Prunnila, Research Team Leader at VTT, in an email interview with IEEE Spectrum. “The main problems are chemical reactivity and high electrical resistivity. The chemical reactiveness leads to poor stability. The high resistivity leads to low power.”

http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/...percapacitors-dump-carbon-in-favor-of-silicon

 

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200 Wattia nyt, millaisia arvoja saadaan ensivuosikymmenellä?

 

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Russia's Defense Ministry has revealed that the military has commissioned several new types of laser weaponry, without further elaborating on any specifics of the systems. However, RIA Novosti spoke to a number of Russian military experts to find out what these advanced weapons may be capable of. Russia seems to be breathing life into the development of "weapons based on new physical principles."

The term "weapons based on new physical principles" was coined in the 1980s by Soviet military officials and used in reference to directed-energy weapons, geophysical weapons and wave-energy weapons, among others.

On Tuesday, the Russian Deputy Defense Minister revealed that laser weapons are no longer a novelty for the Russian armed forces however without specifying what they are potentially capable of.

RIA Novosti turned to some well-known military experts to find out what are the advantages of the laser based weapon systems.

Airborne Laser
The weapons based on new physical principles, including the aircraft-mounted laser which is currently being developed in Russia, will reliably ensure the national security, according to Igor Korotchenko, a respected Russian military analyst, a member of the Russian Defense Ministry's civic council and editor of the magazine 'National Defense'.

He further explained that a powerful laser system mounted on an Il-76, a multi-purpose four-engine turbofan strategic airlifter, will be able to counter enemy reconnaissance systems.

It's guaranteed to disrupt optoelectronic equipment and field sensors operating in the infrared range in space, at sea, and on land.

"It is a known fact that similar military equipment is under development in the US, however the American airborne lasers are mostly targeting foreign intercontinental ballistic missiles and their re-entry vehicles," the expert said.

"And while the Americans haven't been very successful here, Russia's aircraft-mounted laser has proved its ability to successfully fulfil the set tasks," he added.

Reports suggest that Russia's flying airborne laser laboratory first took flight in 1981, and fired against an aerial target in April 1984. However, work ceased in the early 1990s for lack of funds.

Vehicle-Mounted Laser
Korotchenko also noted that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can pose a serious threat when they are able to evade surface-to-air missiles.

Then a vehicle-mounted laser will come into play.

"Scientific and technical progress in the military sector will inevitably result in development of other weapons systems based on new physical principles, all the leading military powers are involved in such developments and Russia should be no exception to this process, "the expert added.

Russian military science professor and the president at the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Konstantin Sivkov has suggested that the Russian Armed Forces might have already passed into service the laser systems for jamming tank armament command systems.

"There might also be laser weapons for the sea-based ballistic missile defense and for jamming optronic surveillance and target homing guidance equipment," Sivkov said.

Blinding Laser Weapons
Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, says that laser weapons could also be used by ground forces to blind the optronic equipment of the enemy.

"These weapons will be used, first of all, by the ground forces as blinding equipment. Lasers will blind the optical intelligence equipment and fire control sight systems as well as some command and communication systems," he said.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Rus...lity_of_Moscows_Secret_Laser_Weapons_999.html

Näyttäisi naapuri kehittävän näitä systeemejä dronejen torjuntaan ensisijaisesti.

 

[SJ]

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Rus...lity_of_Moscows_Secret_Laser_Weapons_999.html

Näyttäisi naapuri kehittävän näitä systeemejä dronejen torjuntaan ensisijaisesti.

Selkeästi tällä hetkellä tarpeellisin ja samalla kohtuullisella hinnalla saavutettavissa oleva kehityksen kohde.

 

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Selkeästi tällä hetkellä tarpeellisin ja samalla kohtuullisella hinnalla saavutettavissa oleva kehityksen kohde.

Totta, ja tuli mieleen että se naapurin rubiinilasuilla varustetun tankin uudelleenlämmitys tulee kalliimmaksi kuin remotetorniin kiinnitettävä moderni kilowatti-luokan vempain. Vaikka tosin mielelläni näkisin naapurin tekevän jotakin mieltä mullistavaa tällä alueella. Olihan heillä euvotoliiton aikoina parempi kehitys lasujen suhteen kuin jenkeillä, koska koko SGI projekti oli pelkkää propagandaa.

 

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Here's the scene: a suspicious package is found in a public place. The police are called in and clear the area. Forced to work from a distance and unable to peer inside, they fear the worst and decide to detonate the package.

New research at the University of Rochester might help authorities in the not-too-distant future be better informed in tackling such situations and do so more safely. Working with a special type of electromagnetic wave--called terahertz (THz)--that's capable of sensing and/or imaging objects behind barriers, the team demonstrated that they can detect a THz wave at a distance of up to 100 feet.

The THz wave created by the researchers is more than five times stronger than what is generated by more conventional means, leading them to believe that a THz wave--and the image of a hidden object--can be detected at much greater distances in the future.

The research project was led by Kang Liu, a PhD student in optics, and Xi-Cheng Zhang, the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics and the director of the Institute of Optics, in collaboration with a group from Greece led by Tzortzakis Stelios. The results have been published in the journal Optica.

"The use of an unconventional laser beam in our project goes beyond a scientific curiosity," said Zhang. "It makes possible the remote sensing of chemical, biological, and explosive materials from a standoff distance."

THz waves, which fall between microwave and the infrared band on the electromagnetic spectrum, can penetrate certain solid objects that are opaque to visible light to create images of what is hidden from view. Unlike traditional x-rays, the waves do so without damaging human tissue. All that makes THz waves a promising tool for Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies. But before THz waves can be widely used, a number of obstacles need to be overcome, including how to make them more effective over greater distances.

One of the drawbacks is that the waves are absorbed by water molecules in the air and weaken significantly over longer distances, making them generally ineffective. One solution is to generate the THz waves near the target, so that they have only a short distance to travel. It's also important that the waves are intensive, because, as Liu points out, "The stronger the terahertz wave, the more work it can do."

The key to their results was the use of a specific exotic laser beam--called a ring-Airy beam--to generate a THz wave that has 5.3 times the pulse energy of THz waves created with standard Gaussian beams.

Ordinary beams of light spread out as they travel, but that's not the case with ring-Airy beams, which curve toward the center from all points.

To begin the process, Liu directed a laser beam onto a spatial light modulator (SLM), which formed the ring-Airy beam. As the name indicates, the beam is circular with a hollow center. Instead of spreading out as it travels, the beam collapsed inward, creating an intensely excited region of free electrons--called a plasma. Those electrons, in turn, generated the THz wave, which would be capable of penetrating a nearby target and reflecting images or providing vital chemical information about what is hidden.

"When the target is a suspected explosive device, it's important to get the work done at a safe distance," said Liu. "We believe our method could help THz remote sensing from more than 100 feet away by providing a more robust and flexible way to generate THz remotely."

The modulator allowed the researchers to change the size of the ring-Airy beam and fine-tune the dimensions of the plasma that is created. The next step, as Liu sees it, is to manipulate ring-Airy beams to create stronger THz waves over greater distances.

 

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At a breakfast with defense reporters this week, US Marine Corps Lt. General Robert Walsh, the commanding general of the Corps' Combat Development Command, said that directed energy weapons are "where we want to go." That includes eventually mounting lasers on the F-35B fighter—and virtually everything else in the Marine Corps' inventory.

"As soon as we could miniaturize them, we would put them on F-35s, Cobra [attack helicopters]… any of those kind of attack aircraft," Walsh said, according to a report from National Defense. But given how much difficulty Defense Department researchers have had reducing the size and power required for directed energy weapons, that day is still a long way off—and the objective right now is to get a system that could be flown on a C-130.

The advantage of directed energy weapons, from the Marine Corps' perspective, is that they don't require ammunition (other than their energy source) and could be used defensively against missiles and even other aircraft at a much lower cost per shot than the $300,000 to $400,000 AIM-120 missiles carried by the F-35—or even the 25 millimeter rounds of its GAU-22/A cannon.

The Air Force is also eager to use laser weapons aboard its aircraft and is continuing funding (in cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) of development of the HELLADS 150-kilowatt airborne laser system by General Atomics. The Marine Corps could conceivably piggy-back on the Air Force's work in bringing a high-energy laser to the F-35B, as the F-35A (the Air Force's version of the Joint Strike Fighter) is one of the intended beneficiaries of the research.

On the ground, the Marine Corps is working with the Office of Naval Research on the Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-the-Move (GBAD) program, a ground-vehicle mounted high-energy laser system connected to air defense radar systems. GBAD is currently intended largely for defense against uncrewed reconnaissance aircraft (drones)—so far, OND has tested a 10-kilowatt laser with the system, and "the intent is to move to a 30-kilowatt laser," Walsh said. That would put the system on par with the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) currently deployed aboard the USS Ponce, which has successfully been tested against small surface craft and drones.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/informatio...ts-to-put-lasers-on-f-35-and-everything-else/