Chinese military scientists have revealed the design of a microwave weapon theoretically capable of firing 10 gigawatt power beams at a repeating rate of 126 million times per second.
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The inspiration for the blueprint can be traced back to an explosive quantum phenomenon first glimpsed in Soviet laboratories during the Cold War.
The concept is rooted in the physics of “superradiance”, a design that promises unprecedented peak power, efficiency and firing speed – a combination that would mark a dramatic leap beyond limitations that have long constrained high-power microwave systems.
Published in a recent paper by a team from the PLA Academy of Military Sciences and Key Laboratory of Advanced Science and Technology on High Power Microwave, the design outlines a compact, relativistic electron beam device that leverages a non-uniform slow-wave structure and precision feedback control to generate a rapid-fire sequence of sub-nanosecond-scale microwave bursts.
Computer simulations show the system producing a first pulse with a peak power of 16.6GW – boosting input power with conversion efficiency up to 143 per cent without violating the law of power conservation. Instead, it leveraged the coherent, avalanche-like emission of radiation from tightly bunched electrons.
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Subsequent pulses maintained power above 10GW, each lasting just 0.77 nanoseconds, with a central frequency of about 9.7 gigahertz. Crucially, the pulse train repeated at 126 megahertz, a rate once considered unattainable for weapons-grade systems due to thermal, electrical and material constraints.