Directed Energy Laser Weapon Systems

Directed energy laser weapon systems are one of the most exciting modern weapons that can precisely set a target and apply concentrated laser power on the spot to damage or completely destroy that. For this reason, these weapon systems have found plenty of military applications. Multiple countries including the USA have been working on effectively developing and integrating direct energy weapon systems on the battlefield. Laser weapon systems are more precise and cheaper compared to conventional weapons and can fire endlessly. However, there are still certain concerns regarding the weapon system’s efficiency in harsh weather conditions like heavy haze and mist. 

Major Challenges to Widespread Adoption

Some major challenges to the extensive adoption of the directed energy laser weapon systems are –

1. Keeping the laser weapon systems precisely stable over a long period. 
2. Maintaining high accuracy and narrow bandwidth for the laser weapon system. 
3. Preventing damage to the weapon system through high laser damage thresholds.

A laser weapon system combines several coherent laser sources to produce maximum efficiency and minimum beam divergence. To overcome the earlier-mentioned challenges and achieve highly concentrated laser power, this weapon system uses diffractive optical elements (DOEs).

The Use of Diffractive Optics in Laser Weapon System

Diffractive optical elements are critical components of the weapon system that use the principle of diffractive optics to shape the laser beams. Beam-shaping DOEs modify an input beam into a well-defined output beam of a uniform intensity distribution pattern with a specific shape and sharp edges. Besides beam-shaping DOEs, diffractive beam splitters have also critical applications in laser weapon systems when it comes to directing laser energy at several targets. Beam splitters can control the power and distribution of energy and monitor the laser weapon system’s performance.

Diffractive optical elements bring multiple advantages to the laser weapon system, such as

• They can improve the weapon system’s endurance against high laser power damage.
• Diffractive optical elements are essential components of the laser weapon systems to attain high angular accuracy for both splitting angles and deflections. 
• The uniform property of these optical elements helps weapon systems withstand heavy mist and haze. 
• DOEs are lightweight, compact, and thin, therefore, they are easy and simple to integrate into the weapon systems.

For these reasons, we can observe significant applications of diffractive optical elements in aerospace and defense. 

Final Thoughts

Directed energy laser weapon systems include DOEs or diffractive optical elements as critical components of the systems that generate a concentrated high laser power by combining multiple coherent input laser beams. These optical elements are useful to attain high angular accuracy and laser damage thresholds. Besides generating high laser power, diffractive optical elements can also appropriately distribute the laser power across multiple targets.