US funding freeze halts super laser breakthrough for missile defense

The U.S. development of an advanced ultrafast laser technology, intended to enhance missile defense capabilities, has been abruptly halted due to a funding freeze and a stop-work order. This cutting-edge laser system, which emits ultrashort pulses of light with immense power in fractions of a billionth of a second, held promise not only for defense applications such as countering heat-seeking missiles but also for civilian uses including greenhouse gas detection, brain imaging, and materials science research. The project, led by Cornell Engineering professors Jeffrey Moses and Frank Wise, had received over $1 million in funding since 2019 and was approaching critical experimental milestones earlier in 2025. The research team had developed a method to efficiently convert near-infrared laser light to the mid-infrared range, a frequency vital for defense purposes, with significantly higher efficiency than current technologies. However, the imposed stop-work order prevented the final experiments from proceeding, putting the program’s primary goals at risk and potentially redirecting the