I introduced The Russian nuclear reactor pump laser two days ago, and a friend asked what is the use of the nuclear reactor pump laser?
At present, the main ways to achieve megawatt lasers are chemical lasers and nuclear reactor pump lasers.
The United States once spent $5 billion and spent 16 years to develop a chemical oxygen iodine laser COIN anti-missile system. The system, developed by Northrop Grumman in conjunction with Boeing and Lockheed Martin, was placed on a Boeing 747-400F.
Coil uses chemical energy as a driving energy for the generation of excited molecules, and although it can achieve high power, the system is extremely large: it contains 6 connecting modules, each the size of an SUV, each weighing 3 tons.
Yet even such a behemoth can launch chemical fuel on a Boeing 747 with chemical fuels that can be fired only 20 times. Obviously, such a system does not have any economics.
Of course, the COIL system is also envisioned for many commercial and civilian scenarios, such as the dismantling of remotely abandoned nuclear power plants.
This example helps to understand the background of a nuclear reactor pump laser – harnessing the energy of a nuclear reactor to produce excited molecules – is a good solution for compact megawatt lasers.
However, since the application data of nuclear reactor pump lasers is very limited, I will only show some publicly available academic materials to help accurately understand the maturity of the technology.
