saturable absorption to make a laser create short pulses. Current applications and developments Solid-state lasers are being developed as optional weapons for the F-35 Lightning II, and are reaching near-operational status, as well as the introduction of Northrop Grumman's FIRESTRIKE laser weapon system. In April 2011 the United States Navy tested a high energy solid state laser. The exact range is classified, but they said it fired "miles not yards". Uranium-doped calcium fluoride was the second type of solid state laser invented, in the 1960s. Peter Sorokin and Mirek Stevenson at IBM's laboratories in Yorktown Heights (US) achieved lasing at 2.5 µm shortly after Maiman's ruby laser. The U.S. Army is preparing to test a truck-mounted laser system using a 58 kW fiber laser. The scalability of the laser opens up use on everything from drones to massive ships at different levels of power. The new laser puts 40 percent of available energy into its beam, which is considered very high for solid-state lasers. Since more and more military vehicles and trucks are using advanced hybrid engine and propulsion systems that produce electricity for applications like lasers the applications are likely to proliferate in trucks, drones, ships, helicopters and planes. See also Disk laser Laser construction Solid-state dye lasers References