Although the world’s laser weapons have developed rapidly in recent years, the overall situation is still in the stage of moving towards actual combat applications, especially high-energy laser pointer weapons such as laser guns, because there are still some problems that restrict its battlefield applications. Although chemical and solid laser weapons have the best overall performance and the fastest rate of advancement to actual combat applications, their volume and weight are still generally large, the demand for continuous energy (electricity) is large, and the safety is weak, which affects the laser weapon’s performance. Mobility, deployment flexibility, etc.
As another example, the output power of laser weapons is difficult to reach the 100-kW weapon-level standard. Its beam tracking and control accuracy is not high. When the target is irradiated, the jitter is too large, and the time required to damage the target is longer, especially for manned fighters and missiles. Waiting for high-speed moving targets, it is difficult to meet the requirements of fast and accurate strikes on the battlefield. Moreover, the laser kills the target through direct fire. The laser weapon cannot attack the bunker or the target after occlusion and the target on the ground beyond the line of sight. It is difficult to penetrate heavy armor, cement walls, etc., and it is greatly affected by environmental conditions and cannot be operated 24/7. The ability to adapt to the battlefield environment is not strong.
This has led to many current methods of countering laser weapons, such as rotating targets such as missiles and shells during flight, releasing aerosols, smoke, and water mist around targets such as aircrafts, thereby reducing the killing distance and effectiveness of laser weapons and limiting their Application scope, deployment methods and task diversity. These problems have affected the degree of actual combat of green laser pointer weapons.
For China, the construction of Guangguang is a major scientific and technological achievement with a very high degree of display, and it is also a practical example of China’s major scientific projects. Different from other similar large-scale scientific equipment in China, “Dalian Light Source” was developed based on scientific drive and application leadership. That is to say, the research experts put forward the demand first, and then the development agency “directs the development” according to the demand, breaking the previous development rule of having devices before finding users.
The construction also set a precedent for successful cooperation between Chinese scientific research experts and large scientific device development experts. The strength of the Dalian Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is scientific research, while the Shanghai Institute has accumulated rich experience in installation construction. “Dalian Light Source” perfectly integrates the strengths of the two research institutes and builds on the strengths of each one. It is a large scientific device construction method with the smallest input-output ratio and the highest efficiency. The current completion is only the first step, and future project experts will make further efforts to develop it into a truly global high-level experimental research platform to help the basic scientific research in all fields of humanity move forward.