Making lasers talk to you

Whoop-dee-doo. Because if there's one thing the world needs more of, its directed energy psychological warfare weapons. Yes. Great. Mwwwwaaaaarrghhh.

This specific project, called Non-Lethal Laser Induced Plasma Effects (NL LIPE), aims to have a perfected a beam that can produce audible instructions and commands to an individual or a small group of people within three years and maybe have a practical prototype system ready in five years.

“I’m trying to get a little plasma ball to speak to you,” David Law, head of the JNLWD’s technology division, told Military Times earlier in March 2018 at an exhibition focused on directed energy systems in Washington, D.C. “We’re this close to getting it to speak to us,” he added to Defense One on the sidelines of the same event.

But it’s not actually transmitting a recording or relaying an actual person talking at all. What’s actually happening is an interaction between two lasers. The first is what’s known as a femtosecond laser, which shoots out pulses of amplified light at an extremely high speed. This creates a ball of plasma, a field of highly electrified gas with unique properties distinct from other states of matter – gasses, liquids, and solids.

Those properties mean that U.S. military scientists can hit the field with a second small nanolaser to create different effects, such as light, sounds, and even the release of thermal energy. They say they’re working on developing ways to tune the system to produce specific audio wavelengths, which in turn will allow them to effectively artificially generate a human voice. It can also generate loud sounds – more than 140 decibels in some cases, the same as hearing a typical gunshot from 100 feet away – that could be distracting or painfully disorienting.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19568/us-military-scientists-are-building-a-laser-cannon-that-shoots-disembodied-voices