http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/03/battlefield-str.html
The Navy is pushing ahead with a five-year, $163 million dollar plan to bring the "Holy Grail" of energy weapons up to battlefield strength...
These days, some lasers use garnet crystals as their gain media. Others, huge vats of toxic chemicals. But a FEL doesn't use any gain medium at all to generate its beam. It uses a turbocharged stream of electrons to kick-start its reaction, instead. And that lets the FEL fire along many different wavelengths -- and for a long, long time. Which is why it's been called the "Holy Grail of lasers...
The Navy will issue three, year-long contracts for preliminary designs. From those three, they'll choose two to go into more detailed schematics, and then a single contractor to actually build and test the thing. Total cost: about $163 million, over five years or so. By the end, the Navy wants the device installed on a barge, so it can be tried out at sea...
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