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Eventually. Navy has breakthrough with Lasers. [Link]

The Navy’s Free Electron Laserprogram uses massively charged electron streams generated by an injector to focus light across multiple wavelengths, making it more powerful than most lasers. Turning it into a death ray requires at least 100 kilowatts worth of power. So far, the prototype Free Electron Laser that the Navy has can only generate 14.

But now the Navy thinks it’s broken a power threshold. Tests in December of a new injector yielded the electrons necessary to get the Free Electron Laser up to “megawatt class” beams, the Office of Naval Research said in a statement issued today, nine months ahead of schedule. One of the project’s lead researchers, Dinh Nguyen, said in the statement that he hoped to “set a world record for the average current of electrons.”

Getting it on board a ship is still a long ways away. Boeing has a contract to get the Navy a new prototype laser by early 2012. Even with the new injector showing promise, researchers don’t anticipate a shipboard test until 2018.

But the arrival of a superlaser for maritime defense is a potential gamechanger. It would represent a speed-of-light weapon that never has to be reloaded, feeding on a ship’s generator, to burn through incoming missiles or aircraft. And that’s not all: program manager Quentin Saulter told Danger Room in November that the Free Electron Laser can be used as a sensor, a tracker or a guidance system for a ship’s conventional weapons.