PLA unveils 10GW microwave weapon blueprint with ultra-fast firing ‘superradiance' tech
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.
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.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
5 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
How did the tomato create the potato? Chinese scientists trace tuber's hybrid past
They could not look less alike in the supermarket aisle, but a Chinese-led research team has uncovered an ancient link that makes a forerunner of the tomato a genetic parent of the potato. By examining genomes and data sets from cultivated and wild potato species, the scientists traced the tuberous plant's evolution back about nine million years to a moment when a tomato ancestor created a hybrid with a group of potato-like – but tuberless – plants called etuberosum. They published their findings in the journal Cell on Thursday. All varieties of potato have underground tubers, but until now it has not been clear how they developed them and diversified. The researchers concluded that hybridisation was a key driver of the development of tubers – the part of the potato that makes it a staple crop today. 'We not only show that the cultivated potato and its 107 wild relatives are derived from an ancient hybrid speciation event, but also that tuber formation itself, a key innovative trait, has a hybrid ancestry,' the team said in the paper. The potato is the third most widely consumed food crop globally, after rice and wheat, and is eaten by over 1 billion people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
AllAfrica
6 hours ago
- AllAfrica
US willfully ceding the energy innovation race to China
During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union were locked in a desperate race to develop cutting‑edge technologies like long-range missiles and satellites. Fast forward to today and the frontiers of global technology have pivoted to AI and next‑generation energy. In one domain, AI, the US has far outpaced any other nation – though China looks to be closing the gap. In the other, energy, it has just tied its shoelaces together. The reason isn't technology, economics or, despite the government's official line, even national security. Rather, it is politics. Since returning to the White House in January, Donald Trump has handed out huge wins to the coal and oil and gas industries. This is no great surprise. Trump has long been supportive of the US fossil fuel industry and, since his reelection, has appointed several former industry lobbyists to top political positions. According to the Trump administration, national security requires gutting support for renewable energy while performing political CPR on the dying coal industry. The reality is that, since 2019, the US has produced more oil, gas and coal annually than Americans want to use, with the rest exported and sold overseas. It is currently one of the most prolific exporters of fossil fuels in the world. In short, the US does not have an energy security problem. It does, however, have an energy cost problem combined with a growing climate change crisis. These issues will only be made worse by Trump's enthusiasm for fossil fuels. Over the past six months, the Trump administration has upended half a decade of green industrial policy. It has clawed back billions of US dollars in tax credits and grants that were supercharging American energy innovation. Meanwhile, China has roared forward. Beijing has doubled down on wind, solar and next‑generation batteries, installing more wind and solar power in 2024 than the rest of the world combined. To China's delight, the US has simply stopped competing to be the world's clean energy powerhouse. Roughly one-in-five lithium‑ion batteries, a key component in clean energy products, are made in China. Many of the newest high‑tech batteries are also being developed and patented there. While Trump repeats the tired mantra of 'drill, baby, drill', China is building factories, cornering the market for critical minerals such as lithium and nickel, and locking in export partners. At the same time, household energy spending in the US is expected to increase by $170 each year between now and 2035 as a result of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The bill, which includes sweeping changes to taxes, social security and more, will raise energy costs mainly because it strips away support for cheap and abundant renewables like wind and solar. Household energy costs could go up even more as Trump threatens to make large‑scale clean energy development much more onerous by putting up bureaucratic hurdles. The administration recently issued a directive requiring the Secretary of the Interior to approve even routine activities for wind and solar projects connected to federal lands. Meanwhile, climate change is hitting American communities harder with each passing year. As recent flooding in Texas and urban fires in California and Hawaii have shown, fewer Americans still have the luxury of ignoring climate change. As the cost of these disasters mount – $183 billion in 2024 – the grifting of the oil and gas industry will become an increasingly bitter pill for the nation to swallow. China, with its authoritarian government, is less susceptible to the petroleum-obsessed dogma fueling the Republican party. It does not have prominent leaders like US politician Marjorie Taylor Greene, who previously warned that Democrats are trying to 'emasculate the way we drive' by advocating for electric vehicles. Rather, China's leaders are seeing green – not in the environmental sense, but in a monetary one. It is generally cheaper nowadays to build and operate renewable energy facilities than gas or coal power stations. According to a June 2025 report by Lazard, an asset management company, electricity from new large-scale solar farms costs up to $78 per megawatt hour – and often much less. The same electricity from a newly built natural gas plants, by comparison, can cost as much as $107 per megawatt hour. Across the world, utilities are embracing clean energy, choosing lower costs for their customers while reducing pollution. China saw the writing on the wall decades ago, and its early investments are bearing a rich harvest. It now produces more than half of the world's electric vehicles and the vast majority of its solar panels. The US can still compete at the leading edge of the energy sector. American companies are developing innovative new approaches to geothermal, battery recycling and many other energy technologies. But in the battle to become the world's 21st-century energy manufacturing powerhouse, the US seems to have walked off the playing field. In Trump's telling, the US may have simply exited one race and reentered another. But the fossil fuel industry – financially, environmentally and ethically – is obviously a dead end. Stephen Lezak is program manager at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
South China Morning Post
8 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Scientists trace the spike of north China flooding to solar cycle activities
A study led by scientists in China has found a link between the sun's 11-year cycle and summer rain in the country, identifying why drought conditions in the south and flooding in the north intensify during high solar years. The team studied precipitation patterns during the East Asian summer monsoon – particularly the intense mei yu or 'plum rain' period – and found that the solar cycle influenced summer precipitation by modulating climate patterns and shifting the rain belt north. 'The summer precipitation pattern on a decadal timescale … can be attributed to the solar precipitation regime,' the team said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Climate on July 15. The researchers said their study identified the influence of changes in the solar magnetic cycle over decades on China's summer pattern of 'south drought and north flooding'. The findings of the researchers – from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, University of Science and Technology of China, and the Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany – could be used to improve climate prediction and forecasting, particularly on longer-term scales. 'It is well known that the positioning of the monsoon rain belt significantly influences the distribution of summer droughts and floods in China, making precipitation patterns a crucial focus for climate predictions during flood seasons,' the researchers said.
