The US Navy's free-electron laser has broken a few records already, but it's just plowed through another fairly big one -- one that its creators say could put it on the fast track to actually being used to shoot down missiles.
While some of these weapon and sensor systems like the Electromagnetic Railgun or the FreeElectron Laser are at least a decade away, the Laser Weapon System and Air and Missile Defense Radar systems are almost ready for prime time deployment today.
Normally, an incoming electron would have a good chance of displacing one of these low-energy incumbents, but unlike the free electrons in metals, which are usually singletons, those in a superconductor tend to wander around in pairs.