OCTOBER 30, 2026 – Higher laser power can expand the capabilities of directed-energy systems, but the beam still has to retain its quality and deliver sufficient energy to a target at a distance.
High-energy laser weapons are often described by a single figure: power. A 50-kW system sounds more capable than a 20 kW one, and the difference seems even greater when systems reach hundreds of kilowatts. But the power of the source alone does not show how much energy actually reaches the target.
Before the beam leaves the weapon, it passes through optics that shape, steer, and control it. Once it enters the atmosphere, turbulence, moisture, and particles further affect its propagation. Engineers therefore have to consider both the power generated at the source and the energy delivered where it is needed.
Counter-drone systems move beyond the lab
The economic case for directed energy in counter-drone applications is straightforward. Conventional interceptors can be expensive, especially against low-cost drones. A laser engagement has a lower marginal cost once the system is operating and powered, since each engagement doesn’t require another missile.
That calculation has helped drive the development of laser-based counter-uncrewed aircraft systems (counter-UAS). In June 2026, the US Naval Research Laboratory demonstrated a system that could transmit power wirelessly over a distance and then switch to a defensive counter-UAS role using the same hardware. The demonstration, conducted with Boeing and the Army’s DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center, and involving Navy, Marine Corps, and Army stakeholders, explored how one laser system could support multiple battlefield functions.
As developers look beyond small drones to larger or faster threats, they are exploring higher power levels. That creates additional demands for optics and beam-control systems.
The target only receives the energy that arrives
A laser weapon must deliver sufficient energy to a small area of the target and keep it there long enough to produce the intended effect. Distance makes this more difficult. The beam spreads as it travels, atmospheric turbulence can distort it, and moisture, dust, and other particles can absorb or scatter energy. The system must also track a moving target accurately enough to maintain the spot.
The US Government Accountability Office has identified distance and atmospheric conditions as practical limitations for directed-energy weapons, noting that fog and storms can reduce range and beam quality. Some losses occur along the beam path. Others begin inside the system, before the beam reaches the atmosphere.
Small losses matter at high power
Inside the weapon, the beam reflects off mirrors and passes through other optical components designed to minimize losses. But even small absorption converts some laser energy into heat. At lower power levels, the resulting thermal load may be manageable. As power increases, the same absorption percentage can generate substantially more heat in the optic.
Martynas Adomaitis, Market Development Manager at OPTOMAN, explains: “When you increase the power of the laser, you also increase the demands on every optic in the beam path. Even very low absorption can create significant thermal loading at these power levels. If that starts to distort the optic, you can lose beam quality before the laser ever reaches the atmosphere.”
The issue is not simply whether the mirror survives. Heating can change an optic surface or refractive properties, altering the outgoing beam’s wavefront. The mirror may look unchanged, but the beam no longer meets the system’s design requirements. That matters when the system needs to concentrate energy on a small area at a distance.
OPTOMAN’s work in this area focuses on low-absorption coatings, laser-damage resistance, and large-aperture optics for directed-energy applications.
More power can make beam control more demanding
One way to increase total laser power is coherent beam combining, which brings several laser channels together and controls their outputs, so they form a combined beam. In principle, this offers a path to higher power without relying on a single fiber laser to deliver the entire output.
In practice, the channels must remain correctly phased and aligned, and the combined beam must pass through optics that can handle the power without introducing excessive absorption or distortion. High source power is of limited use if the beam loses the quality needed for the application as it travels through the system.
Larger beams require larger optics
Designers can reduce intensity on an optical surface by increasing the beam diameter and spreading the energy over a larger area. The trade-off is that a larger beam requires larger optics, which can be more challenging to manufacture and qualify consistently.
Coating thickness and optical performance must remain controlled across the full aperture. Variations that might have little effect on a small component can contribute to wavefront error across a large mirror. The challenge increases when several requirements must be met at once: a large aperture, low absorption, and resistance to prolonged high-power exposure.
The atmosphere adds another variable
Even a beam that retains its quality inside the weapon must travel through an atmosphere that the engineers cannot control. Temperature gradients change air refractive index, while moisture and particles can absorb or scatter energy. Conditions can also change during an engagement.
Adaptive optics can compensate for some atmospheric distortion by measuring changes in the beam path and correcting them in real time, but they cannot eliminate every effect. A system that performs well in clear weather may have less range or beam quality in poor conditions. This is why the beam needs to leave the weapon in the best possible condition. Adaptive optics cannot restore power already lost to absorption inside the system, and any wavefront distortion from the internal optics uses up correction capacity that would otherwise be available for the atmosphere.
Power on target is the measure that counts
Higher-power lasers will remain an important part of directed energy development. Source power indicates the energy available at the start, but the beam must still be generated, combined where necessary, transmitted through the optics, steered accurately, and maintained on a moving target. It must then propagate through the atmosphere and remain concentrated long enough to produce the intended effect.
As directed-energy systems move from demonstrations toward operational use, the source of power is only one part of the picture. What matters in the end is how much energy reaches the target, and how reliably the system can deliver it.