I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

To be honest, Zhong Cheng was not deeply impressed by Ye Changsi's paper, and at the time there was no need to study it in depth.

To say that plasma is used as a reflector is just a general statement, and the real principle is much more complicated.

The basis of this technology is that the plasma itself is endowed with extremely high energy and cannot be further destroyed by high-intensity lasers. At the same time, it cannot absorb more energy, so it can reflect the laser almost perfectly.

When the beam hits the plasma, the electrons are accelerated and oscillate along the fluctuating electric field of the beam. This movement causes the electrons to absorb the energy of the beam and emit it in the opposite direction, just like when light shines on a bright chrome-plated metal surface. Reflection is the same.

The high-frequency oscillating plasma strengthens the laser hundreds or thousands of times, and due to the Doppler effect, the wavelength is shortened and the pulse interval is reduced. If the light source is red light, it may become blue-violet light after reflection and focusing.

The important reason for enhancing lasers also comes from this. In theory, the pulse interval of 20 femtoseconds of conventional lasers can be reduced to 0.1 femtoseconds or even lower.

As a high-energy physics paper published by a private laboratory, many people are paying attention to this article. Most of them agree with this solution, but they do not think it is currently feasible.

To put it simply, focusing the laser requires a "mirror" that can accurately control the direction. But the plasma itself is extremely violent, so how to control the raging fire to evenly distribute it into a smooth surface?

Such precise control of electromagnetic forces at the molecular level represents a major breakthrough in basic scientific research tools, and it cannot be achieved so easily.

The previous tool of the same level is called the three-dimensional atom probe (APT). It is famous because scientists use it to call a dozen atoms on the surface of materials to write text with atomic-level accuracy.

Plasma mirrors are equivalent to controlling countless APTs to form various mirrors at thousands or even tens of thousands of degrees Celsius, with molecules (atoms) shaking out without shadows. The difficulty is not only exponentially higher.

Because of this, when Lin Ju suddenly announced that the laser smelting satellite ground verification machine was completed and conquered the most difficult plasma reflector, it quickly attracted the highest attention from the national defense to the Academy of Sciences, and organized troops to fly over without delay. .

After all, according to Lin Ju, what Xinyuan is currently manufacturing is only a "rudimentary laboratory prototype" that can "only" amplify the power 120 times, and the continuous output power of the light source cannot exceed 80 kilowatts.

The content of the 80-kilowatt laser was simply ignored by them. With Xinyuan's strength, as long as it was willing to pay for a laser of this level, it would definitely be within reach.

In fact, according to the current classification, 80 kilowatts in the field of military lasers can only be considered low power, but laser weapons can only be irradiated for a very short time, some even less than a second.

The 80-kilowatt light source is actually a castrated and weakened version of the 140-kilowatt light source used by Qianjunbang No. 1.

However, in order to meet the needs of ore smelting, an extremely bloated heat dissipation system and a redesigned lens were deliberately added. The 80-kilowatt laser used up to 7.5 tons of mass.

But what comes in exchange is the unique 25-minute long continuous irradiation time. This data is truly jaw-dropping.

Because according to several steel plant studies conducted by the United Mining Organization, due to the extremely high temperature of laser smelting, when the steelmaking volume itself is very small and no more than 100 tons, the key heating time for a furnace of metal smelting only takes 40 to 50 minutes.

But in fact, this level is just what the base wants to show. Otherwise, a real big guy who can focus continuously for 24 hours with a power of more than megawatts will not directly overturn the entire laser industry.

However, the insiders at the scene did not mean to look down upon it at all. After an 80-kilowatt laser is amplified 120 times, it has a full output of 9.6 megawatts!

It can continuously output a laser with a power of up to 9600 kilowatts for 25 minutes!

What this means is that it is capable of destroying all known materials, and nothing can withstand such laser ablation.

The aluminum alloy fighter plane is as weak as plastic film in front of it. It is easily heated and curled into a ball of rotten metal. The remaining fuel will be ignited and exploded immediately, and the pilot will not even have time to parachute.

A few millimeters of steel plate on modern warships are even more defenseless. Nowadays, shipbuilding technology likes to mix aluminum alloys in order to reduce weight. It can burn a big hole in just one second. If it is exposed for a while, the rest of the It will lose strength due to being heated, break at the waist and sink directly.

And compared with traditional high-power laser weapons, a major breakthrough after adding plasma reflectors is the range.

It sounds like talking about the range of laser weapons is redundant, but in fact it is not, because the laser beam emitted by the laser weapon needs to be focused, and the furthest focus distance of the focusing lens basically determines the range.

According to the simplest optical curvature calculation, when the focus of the lens is 5 kilometers and the lens diameter is 30 mm, the height difference between the central protrusion of the lens and the edge is only 15 to 30 nanometers.

If the focus is 100 kilometers, this number will be reduced to 0.1 nanometers. The existing industry cannot process super lenses with a diameter of 30 millimeters and a surface error of no more than nanometers.

Therefore, the higher the power of the laser, the closer the action range will be, otherwise the power will attenuate to a terrible level. The range of existing laser weapons is usually only a few hundred meters to several kilometers, and the power is often tens to hundreds of kilowatts. Wander.

Lasers with an operating distance of more than tens of kilometers can only give up focusing and rely on miraculous scattering to transmit power. Apart from stacking weight like the Qianjun Rod series, it is almost meaningless.

But the plasma reflector is different. It is not an optical lens, and naturally has no refractive index. In theory, it can easily focus to tens of millions of kilometers away. Even if it is discounted, it can still be tens of thousands of kilometers away, right?

Not to mention dealing with conventional wars, even the most rudimentary space wars are enough.

Let a large transport plane hundreds of kilometers away carry such a set of lasers and sweep across the ground battlefield from a distance, turning all tanks and armored vehicles into steel ruins;

It's not even afraid of fighter jets and missiles, they will explode as soon as they are swept over.

Therefore, when the Aviation Development Commission reported this technology, the military almost suspected that someone was crazy. After learning that it was Xinyuan, they hurriedly flew over to witness this theoretical miracle.

"Brother, can he turn it on and test it?"

An officer whom he didn't recognize but who always seemed familiar came forward and looked eagerly at the test machine quietly regardless of the age gap of several decades. Only now did he notice that there was a small nameplate on the metal frame on the side. It says:

"blazing sun"