Talk:Electrolaser

Biased usage scenario

According to this article, the only use for this technology is for killing and maiming humans. What about the applications for frictionless commutation and drilling? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shanjaq (talk • contribs) 09:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The bias is due to the funding sources. If you expect to get paid for doing research, you need to bow and scrape towards the funding agency with the deepest pockets. Also, companies with longstanding records of winning bids for weapons systems will tend to always present new developments as weaponry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.215.115.31 (talk) 16:11, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

@99.215.115.31 Then what about the legality of civilian use with a gun licence? 72.83.128.234 (talk) 17:39, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I just found a relevant paper published in Nature, where the authors successfully used a Tesla coil to keep the plasma channel alive and increase the range from centimeters to meters, limited by the ominidirectional transmission from the Tesla coil (which they suggest replacing with a directional source). They do not mention usage as a weapon, and it seems their main vision is to control lightning. Elias (talk) 11:44, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Useless against vehicles?

Since vehicles act as faraday cages, wouldn't even the strongest electrolaser be completely useless against them? Malamockq 05:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• If the vehicle has a metal casing.

If the vehicle has a metal casing than the plasma will stress and then melt the metal due to the extreme voltage, the same goes for glass as well Anthony Appleyard 07:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• I believe that a laser induced plasma channel would not be able to pass through a window pane. --Kevinkor2 09:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• No, but what about the massive blast of electrons that follows?
• fairly useless against glass, but if you have a strong enough electrolaser, you could shoot out the tires (won't work on tanks) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.64.8.53 (talk) 18:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Ionatron claims that this technology could be used to disable vehicles. They didn't have anything to back it up, however, and I will take anything they say with a few grains of salt myself. I wouldn't use them as a reliable source. Any additional speculation in this area should take the form of references to published papers, or working implementations of the tech, of which there are none sited. --Micah Hainline 03:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

As for a laser-induced plasma channel passing through a window, yes it would be able to (once again, this is my opinion), because it is formed by heating the air, and I think we can be pretty certain that a window will not offer very much protection against that. It's not something that comes from the gun, it's created in situ by the laser beam. In regards to effectiveness on vehicles, I am still researching this myself, although I admit that sources on this are scant at best. Even if it could not affect vehicles, however, it remains a useful tool.

In the event that I find any useful sources on the matter, I will update the article.211.30.132.2 13:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A laser induced plasma channel using an electric charge to damage a vehicle will only work if the vehicle is grounded. Otherwise the static charge will not follow the path of the laser. The laser only creates a path of least resistance for the charge to follow as it searches for a grounded path. If the vehicle is not grounded then the path isn't complete and the charge will not follow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.249.144.29 (talk) 08:22, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Even if the vehicle were not grounded, I suppose the high voltage between the car and the ground could bridge the gap with a spark, if that closed the circuit with least resistance. Please correct me if I am wrong. Elias (talk) 11:21, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Ionatron

This bit is a mess. I removed "Ionatron is not presently field testing LIPC weapons in Iraq." as there isn't any question raised elsewhere about this, and it's also unsourced. I also removed qualification around the fact it develops these sort of weapons for the US, as Reuters confirms it. See http://stocks.us.reuters.com/stocks/fullDescription.asp?symbol=IOTN I'd go head and fix all that sourcing stuff myself, but I'm lazy and tired right now, so I'll leave it to someone else.  :) --Micah Hainline 03:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Citations needed OR lots of speculation

There is way too much "this MIGHT BE an electrolaser" in this article, uncited, unsourced. Not cool. I don't know about the topic so maybe that is a widely held conclusion and not OR, but it needs to be cited if so. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 15:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The part about using an electrolaser to target lightning strikes is pretty far-fetched and definitly needs a citation. If a reliable refrence for it can't be found, this should be deleted as speculation.F-451 (talk) 05:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The authors of this Nature paper successfully used a Tesla coil to keep the laser-induced plasma channel alive and increase the range from centimeters to meters, limited by the ominidirectional transmission from the Tesla coil (which they suggest replacing with a directional source). They do not mention usage as a weapon, and it seems their main vision is to control lightning. Elias (talk) 11:46, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

An even bigger question remains, does electrolasers really exist at all? I have heard rumors about them for over 10 years now, but still I have never seen any photage of one being used or even tested. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RBM 72 (talk • contribs) 23:06, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

There was an article in Scientific American several years back about Terra-watt lasers. A side effect of the laser was to create a plasma channel and they had pictures of the laser itself and of it operating. Notable effects of the laser beyond the plasma channel was that you could actually see the laser from a third party perspective as a result of plasma creation/ionization. It was also found that you could channel electricity from a static charge down the length of the laser beam to a grounded target. Thus eliminating the blowing up a vehicle argument however the distance that the beam could carry the charge was only several meters. Refer to the bottom of the page as to why this is not a useful distance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.249.144.29 (talk) 08:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Is a second conductor needed for current return?

• I inserted:

To complete the electric circuit, there must be either a second laser beam, or a ground return, from the target to the last transformer in the step-up series.

At 01:13, 1 December 2007 User:DHeyward deleted that text with edit comment "yes it can be both paths. S12 and S21.". But:

1. What are this S12 and S21?
2. I cannot see how two currents (one outgoing, one return), can flow in opposite directions in the same conductor at the same time. Or external reference please. Anthony Appleyard 10:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

See Scattering parameters. it's fundamental to how electricity behaves. Only in the very narrow low frequency case is the two conductors required. For the most part, electricity is transferred as a field and the container of the field is where the energy is located. energy travels as both a forward and return wave. See Waveguide for even more. A waveguide is a simple tube that transfers electricity. It has standing waves (for example, the TE10 mode) inside a single conductor. --DHeyward 18:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Google "plasma waveguide". --DHeyward 19:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Old Newscientist article, has short report on what sounds like a electrolaser - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15621060.600-set-phasers-to-shock---.html Not much additional information, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.110.226 (talk) 23:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

• Further explanation needed

The question i still valid. In order to create a standing wave, the frequency must be very high (typically radiofrequency and above). This on the other hand should lower the efficiency of the weapon since human nerves are insensitive to higher frequencys (10kHz and above). Using a wave conductor therefor seems unlikely, unless there is some fact i am overlooking. In order to have a return current, there are however some other possibilities. One can use two parallel beams, one can use the ground, or one can use the body to infinity capacitance.

what about using a high frequency AC as a carrier for lower frequency pulses? --TiagoTiago (talk) 22:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

A return current is not required if one uses a plasma Induced crona discharge from a Van de graaff generator (jsellar 2010) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.19.241.15 (talk) 11:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• The way all this is presented, it would be impossible or impractical to use. First, the plasma channel cannot act as a waveguide because it should be a hollow tube (EM waves propagate through dielextric medium enclosed in a conductor which itself is grounded, a configuration impossible to achieve with plasma channels.) Since plasma channels are fully conductive, they WOULD need a return line. If an electric current is sent through a single plasma channel, the way it would affect the target would be by sending the current through it to the ground, but then the ground would return it back to the gun through the shooter, so there wouldn't be much difference being on the sentding or the receiving end! The only way to shoot that would be to have the gun well grounded so not to kill the gunner. :) The other problem with the single channel would be that the earth would attract it, so it could possibly have worse drop than any ballistic weapon. In fact, this looks to me that shooting a handheld electrolaser would look something like creating a lightning which would strike from the gun to the ground and kill the shooter; doesn't look like a viable weapon at all. In fact, whenever I hear something about single conductor shocking, it mostly reminds me of idiotic movie electrocutions, like getting shocked hanging from a single conductor mid-air, or when standing on a conducting surface which gets connected to a single wire... --Arny (talk) 12:40, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Voltage

Is there a mistake in this sentence: "The final voltage may be between 10^8 and 10^9 volts."? Since when have there ever been transformers with 1GV winding insulation? Ilikefood (talk) 18:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

If useing a plasma enduced eletro static discharge type the capasity would be 9.999 volts for every centimeter of radius (jsellar 2010) 12:13, 22 February 2010 USer:120.19.241.15

This is ridiculous; even if you could produce 100 MV there's no way you could contain it - such a voltage would penetrate any shielding and zap the user first. I suggest this be removed immediately. 10000 volts is far more likely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.129.34 (talk) 08:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Size?

• How big (including and excluding power supply) are electrolasers, for each sort of powerfulness? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

At the current time a Terra-watt laser is capable of creating a plasma channel. The lasers are about the size of a semi-trailer and operate by firing and then shutting down for a moment and then firing again. The result is a weaker laser that fires for a very small fraction of a second causing more energy to be transmitted then in traditional methods. American Science had an article on it several years ago. Also they are working on an even more powerful laser at JPL for use in fusion reactions. It will likely operate in the same manner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.249.144.29 (talk) 08:12, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

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