PRC/PLAN Laser and Rail Gun Development Thread

[fatfreddy]

The thing that irritates me about Jane's is that you can't get access to their full articles even if you pay money. You have to be a "client". I have no idea what that entails.

Client means you have to have either a subscription to a particular service or you have engaged them for a specific project/research

 

[Jura The idiot]

The promise of Laser gun sofar is stymied by the need for huge power for laser gun
Well the problem is power source and the inefficiency of converting low energy beam into high energy beam due to inefficiency of conversion.Therefore it need huge power source But help is on the way Chinese scientist claim they found crystal that will do the conversion efficiently increasing it by factor of 13 But sofar the crystal that they can grow is small It will be many years before they can grow it to the the size of a dime Here it is

Could these crystals be the next leap forward in China’s laser technology?

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Researchers say they have developed a substance that is 13 times better in tests than widely used alternative

Experiments could help solve a power source problem that has plagued commercial and military devices

Stephen Chen
Published: 3:29pm, 4 Sep, 2019

Scientists in southeast China say they have synthesised a crystal with the potential to significantly improve the performance of lasers used in consumer and military equipment.

Crystals of caesium bismuth germanate (CBGO) can turn low-energy beams into high-energy emissions with unparalleled efficiency, according to Professor Mao Jianggao, team leader at the Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Fuzhou.

The team looked at several candidate crystals in their experiments. Compared to widely used potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystals, the CBGO crystal was 13 times more efficient at turning infrared lasers into more energised green beams.

“This is a record performance,” Mao said on Tuesday. “This is why we think the crystal may have potential.”

Their findings were published in the German weekly scientific peer review journal Angewandte Chemie, or Applied Chemistry, last month.

The researchers said CBGO crystals could be a way around a problem that has limited the performance of lasers – the huge amount of electricity needed to power them.

The demand on power is great because existing technology is not efficient at converting low-energy beams to high-energy ones – one reason that laser weapons are not yet as common as scientists predicted in the 1960s.

CBGO belongs to a family known as non-linear crystals, which cause abrupt changes to energy that passes through them. The scientists found that CBGO crystals could double the frequency of a laser beam.

As high-energy lasers can be created by merging two low-energy photons, or particles of light, a process known as frequency doubling, CBGO crystals are an ideal medium, and the higher frequency of the laser, the more energy it carries.

Many military and civilian applications required high-energy beams, they said. These included directed energy weapons designed to destroy drones or missiles, or China’s prototype Guanlan anti-submarine warfare satellite, which will use a green laser to penetrate water to a depth of 500 metres (1,640 feet) to detect a target.

Mao said his team’s research was at an early stage and that years of testing would be needed before the CBGO crystals found their way to market.

The CBGO crystal grown in the Fuzhou laboratory was the size of a grain of sand, he said. For industrial use, crystals would need to be at least the size of a dice.

Growing them was a very slow and challenging job, and there was no certainty that CBGO crystals could be grown on an industrial scale, Mao said.

China is a world leader in crystal research, and some of those most commonly used in laser devices were developed by Chinese scientists thanks to heavy investment from central government.

Professor Li Qiang, deputy director with the Institute of Laser Engineering at Beijing University of Technology, said the discovery of CBGO was encouraging, but its success should be evaluated not only on its efficiency, but also on attributes such as mechanical strength, tolerance to laser damage, and stability in extreme environments such as high humidity.

“Lots of crystals have been proposed over the decades, but only a handful are useful. It’s a high-risk business,” Li said. “China has achieved a leading position in this field not because of luck, but by continuous effort by several generations of researchers through countless failures.”

#5656Hendrik_2000, A moment ago

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incredibly, Popular Mechanics picked up on this:
China's New Crystals Could Finally Make Laser Weapons a Thing

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[Jura The idiot]

now noticed the tweet

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登陆舰936-洋山号。刚结束活动，这是今年的第三次，也是最后一次试验，结束。
Translated by
Landing ship 936-Yangshan. The event has just ended. This is the third and final trial of this year and it is over.

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[Chish]

From my limited chinese, it is translated as it is this year 3rd trial. And also the final trial and finalised (ended).

 

[taxiya]

登陆舰936-洋山号。刚结束活动，这是今年的第三次，也是最后一次试验，结束。
@Chish, I would be careful not to make the translation as "And also the final trial and finalised (ended)." That translation gives the impression of weapon being finalized of all test and trial.

The Chinese sentence is not grammatically complete which certainly will lead to multiple interpretation, especially the last word. Let me translate and put the missing part in bracket.
(1) 这是今年的第三次，(2)也是最后一次试验，(3)结束。
(1)This is the 3rd of this year, (2)it is also the last test (of this year?, or of the whole program?), (3)finish (of what?).
Only the 1st part is crystal clear, the 2nd and 3rd parts are all incomplete and subjected to interpretation.

 

[Chish]

登陆舰936-洋山号。刚结束活动，这是今年的第三次，也是最后一次试验，结束。
@Chish, I would be careful not to make the translation as "And also the final trial and finalised (ended)." That translation gives the impression of weapon being finalized of all test and trial.

The Chinese sentence is not grammatically complete which certainly will lead to multiple interpretation, especially the last word. Let me translate and put the missing part in bracket.
(1) 这是今年的第三次，(2)也是最后一次试验，(3)结束。
(1)This is the 3rd of this year, (2)it is also the last test (of this year?, or of the whole program?), (3)finish (of what?).
Only the 1st part is crystal clear, the 2nd and 3rd parts are all incomplete and subjected to interpretation.

Totally agreed.

 

[discspinner]

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For what it's worth. There's a mention in a recent gov mouthpiece.

 

[by78]

The railgun is undergoing possible maintenance at Dalian Liaonan shipyard.

Zooming in to the relevant part. The railgun is under the green cover.

 

[Tam]

I can see 053s and 056s in that shipyard.

 

[voyager1]

Any news regarding the railgun development progress?