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Technology Stocks : Applied Energetics, Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoro99 who wrote (480)	5/28/2010 10:36:01 AM
From: Zoro99	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 512

AERG covered in Tucson Business news article on May 27th... --------------------------------------------------------- Forging and casting man-made lightning bolts with lasers PROFILE: Applied Energetics Link: azbiz.com By Joe Pangburn, Inside Tucson Business Published on Thursday, May 27th, 2010 In Greek mythology, Zeus – the king of the Gods – would throw down his lightning bolts from the heavens in a display of his might and power. These days, Applied Energetics works to put the power of man-made lightning into the hands of the military. Applied Energetics was started in November 2002 by a group of former Raytheon Missile Systems employees and laser-specialists who shared an idea for laser-guided electricity. “’We can figure that out,’ we said. And we did,” said Joseph Hayden, one of the company’s founders who is now chief operating officer and executive vice president. “Within a month we built our first laser and by December 2003 we landed our first Air Force contract.” In March 2004, Ionatron, as it was then named, went public to raise more funds for its work. At the same time it also signed a contract with the Navy, which promptly classified the work the company does. “That presented a bit of a challenge,” Hayden said. “But we’ve done great. In fact, we’re notorious in some aspects as the only company holding the patent on the method for Laser Guided Energy. It’s fun to see similarities to our technology highlighted on TV shows and now in “Iron Man 2.” Mickey Rourke’s character ‘Backlash’ uses a pair of whips and Iron Man describes them as ‘ionized plasma channels’.” From the company’s start, a detailed understanding of lasers, especially Ultra Short Pulse lasers, has advanced the concept of Laser Guided Energy. This type of laser is uniquely suited to deliver the energy intensities required to create optical filaments, which are fundamental to creating Laser Guided Energy. As the result of all the research and work, the company has more than 40 patents awarded or pending. So just how do you create man-made lightning? Utilizing the Laser Guided Energy or Laser Induced Plasma Channel technologies, one can transmit high voltage electrical charges by using an ultra-short pulse laser to create a conductive path in the atmosphere around the beam. According to the company’s website, this technique can deliver tailored weapon and countermeasure effects to targets with laser accuracy, and with manageable lethality to reduce the potential for inadvertent injury and collateral damage. In 2008, Applied Energetics delivered a transportable, vehicle-based, femtosecond (that’s one quadrillionth of a second) high-power laser system to the U.S. Navy. The Ultra-Short Pulsed Laser Transportable Demonstrator is an integrated, mobile, laser laboratory with a state-of-the-art, ultra short pulsed laser and motion-stabilized beam delivery optics. The system provides the Navy with unique capabilities to study terawatt laser-atmospheric interactions in a variety of environments and over long ranges. The company routinely has groups of soldiers training on the technology at its facility in the Butterfield Industrial Center north of Interstate 10 and Palo Verde Road. One of Applied Energetics’ programs that has garnered attention is the development of a counter IED (improvised explosive device). The company has demonstrated that it can use electric discharge techniques neutralize an IED. The Marine Corps has issued two contracts, one in June 2008 for $9.3 million and one in January this year for $10.4 million, for assistance in its counter IED efforts. “One of the advantages of working for the military is they encourage you to find a dual use for the technology so it can be commercialized,” Hayden said. “That’s our next step as a company is heading into the commercial sector.” Hayden said companies in aerospace, industrial machining and chemical processing could potentially benefit from Applied Energetics’ technology. “We have a couple contracts already,” Hayden said. “We are trying to develop the next-generation processes for the commercial sector.” Hayden loves Tucson personally but as a start-up dealing with a new technology, he said Tucson can be a tough place to be. “For one thing it can be difficult to get to,” he said. “If you want to bring someone out to look at your technology, often they will have to connect to get here. It can be hard to attract talent to Tucson because we don’t have the kind of scene some younger talent looks for or some of the educational options the slightly older crowd wants. We need to build up a critical mass of tech companies here so we can start to get more venture capital funds here. We do have a world-class optics program at the University of Arizona, and that definitely helps. And we definitely have a better cost of living than California.” While Hayden called his job is “a total guy job” dealing with terawatt lasers and explosions, he most appreciates the people he works with. “There is a lot of risk involved in working for a start-up company,” he said. “You really have to believe in what you’re doing and in what the company is doing to come here every day. You may be working on something and developing a new technology that you’ve bet just about everything on and you just don’t know if it’s not going to work when you get done with it. We’ve been fortunate to be right in our technology, and to have people who believed it would work from day one.” Biz Facts Applied Energetics 3590 E. Columbia St. Tucson, AZ 85714 www.appliedenergetics.com (520) 628-7415 Contact reporter Joe Pangburn at jpangburn@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4259. Copyright © 2010 Inside Tucson Business