Inside Elbit's laser lab: How an aerial Iron Beam will alter modern warfare - exclusive

But Elbit is the company that developed the Iron Beam laser itself and it is the sole actor working on applying the recently deployed ground-based air defense to be placed on aircraft, such that aerial threats will eventually be able to be shot down from much closer range, and sometimes even from above.

Cutting items using lasers is a technique used to cut or drill holes in metals and other hard materials by burning, melting or vaporizing. These processes have multiple industrial applications across various industries and production lines.

Mirrors, lenses and compressed gases such as carbon dioxide generally allow technicians to adjust the laser beam's focus through a laser cutting nozzle, after which the narrow beam then melts or burns away the material.

A fiber laser cutter is the most recently invented laser machine, using a medium made of optical fibers and is less expensive to make than gas or crystal laser cutters.

They also have a higher power output.

CBC and phase modulators are also used in a variety of private sector contexts with as few of them as around 10, but Iron Beam uses a much larger number.

In the private sector, CBC allows defense and industrial systems to scale low-power, single-emitter fiber lasers into a single much more destructive high-power laser beam.

Companies, and in certain ways Elbit, use active phase control to lock the relative phases of hundreds of individual lasers to develop perfect constructive interference, which in turns dramatically increases a laser's intensity and range.

Online pictures of machines using CBC and phase modulator technology show layers of small-looking disks that are all interconnected to weave together the eventual laser beam.

Still, Ben David made sure to emphasize "don't touch anything."

Responding to a question about the drone threat, Ben David said, "First, currently many countries are fighting against drones and against cruise missiles with air-to-air missiles. That’s a very expensive fight, and it’s not sustainable. Because of that, we thought that bringing High-Power Laser to the air will create a new situation where actually we are becoming the asymmetric power player."

In March of this year, Elbit Systems President and CEO Bezhalel Machlis responded to a question about the drone threat and lasers at a briefing relating to investors saying, "Putting a High-Power Laser in the air enable us first to overcome some of the challenges of the ground like weather and dust and turbulence. Flying above clouds will enable us to gain more ranges and to be more effective, and also to eliminate the threats far away from our borders. Now, from a technical point of view, it’s not an easy task," said Machlis.

Machlis continued, "You need to miniaturize the elements. While moving, you need to lock yourself on a target and in a very precise way. We were able to overcome all these challenges, and we are very advanced in the development. When the solution will be mature and will be operational, I believe it will be a breakthrough in the way countries are defeating swarms and other types of threats."

Ben David stated, "Using lasers to shoot down aerial threats, air to air at the same height or from above, has a number of distinct advantages over ground-based laser defense."

Aerial lasers are the holy grail of lasers in the sense that they can be used more effectively and suddenly on both defense and offense, as opposed to ground-based lasers, which must adjust the direction and goal of their firing much more slowly.

When firing a laser from the ground to the air, one faces a variety of environmental challenges, such as friction, wind, turbulence, impacts on the temperature and heat intensity of the laser beam as it tries to continue toward its target, and even electromagnetic interference or dust in the air.

Also, when firing a laser from the ground, the wattage of the laser must be higher in order to travel farther and compete with the elements.

Engineers work hard to keep the laser's beam on the outside hot, while keeping the machinery on the inside cooler so that it does not overheat and cease to function.

A related significant challenge is developing a coating for the glass to make sure it does not overheat or explode.

Once in the air, especially at 20,000 or 30,000 feet, but to some extent even a few dozen meters off the ground, many of those elements which reduce the laser's intensity are themselves reduced.

Given that environmental limits on the laser's intensity get reduced, then this also means that the kind of laser which would be placed on an aircraft can be smaller and less intense, while still reaching its target.

This saves money, energy, weight, and wattage.

After citing all of the advantages of air-based lasers, this does not mean there are no unique challenges for such lasers.

One challenge is the aircraft shaking before and during the firing of the laser, which can throw off the laser's aim.

An additional challenge is to figure out how to have water flowing in aspects of the special 3D Printing process, since that process can also get too hot, and needs to be cooled down to avoid malfunctions and damage to the relevant equipment. At the same time, obviously water flowing freely through all parts of sensitive electronic equipment could also destroy the equipment.

Elbit has needed hundreds of engineers to evaluate and figure their way through a host of unique problems which no one has ever tried to solve before.

AI cannot solve all of the issues. Instead, Elbit has needed human beings, who have the ability to fail over and over again at one or another approach, while taking pieces apart and dissecting their failures in order to finally arrive at a complex solution that works.

In a presentation at a 2025 briefing, Elbit alluded to the idea that Israeli F15 fighter jets, which, according to foreign sources, can also hold heavy ballistic missiles, could be the lead fighter jet outfitted with lasers for the new and next generation of Israeli air defense.

Elbit also suggested that Israel's UH-60A/L Yanshuf helicopter could be fitted with the Sting laser demonstrator in its cabin, engaging and neutralizing loitering munitions.

The concept was presented during Elbit’s 2025 financial results briefing, where the company outlined its progress.

An animated video shown at the event depicted an F-15I Ra’am equipped with an under-fuselage XCalibur pod intercepting a cruise missile and a Shahed-style drone.

Further scenes showed a UH-60A/L Yanshuf helicopter fitted with the Sting laser demonstrator in its cabin, engaging and neutralizing loitering munitions.

The Elbit laser may not be the answer to every threat, or not initially.

It may not fare well against tiny targets, such as Hezbollah's extremely tiny FPV drones which it has used for harmful effect against IDF troops in Lebanon in recent months.

What about Iranian ballistic missiles?

For now, the initial focus is shooting down regular drones. But someday shooting down ballistic missiles, the greatest conventional threat Israel faces, may not be out of the question.

Little known or remembered by most of the public now, the US has an air-based laser defense program specifically to shoot down ballistic missiles and cruise missiles on and off from the 1980s until 2011.

In 2011, the Airborne Laser anti-ballistic missile system (ABL) developed by Boeing was canceled due to its being viewed as impractical in terms of deployment and expense.

As top US defense official explained, to use that particular laser at the time, a US aircraft would need to already be flying and hovering in enemy airspace (not realistic unless a massive operation has actually occurred to remove enemy air defense threats) and would need to be deployed on 10-20 747 jets at around $1.5 billion per system-jet.

However, in the 15 years that have passed, technology and engineering worldwide have made a variety of new game-changing evolutions, such that Elbit's solution, if and when it works, could conceivably work from a longer and more useful distance and at a more affordable (though not cheap) cost.

Just as importantly, Israel is making a different cost comparison.

The US in 2011 was preparing for a theoretical ballistic missile attack, and one which might involve only a small number of missiles.

Israel in 2026 has had over 1,500 actual ballistic missiles fired at it and has had to use countless Arrow interceptors, each at a cost of $2-3 million, to shoot them down.

This means that any cost to Israel will be compared to that equation and not to a scenario of potentially zero cost.

Even against standard drones, the main near term goal for air-based lasers, there is no immediate or even medium term timeline on when the aerial laser defense will be ready.

However, if a year or two ago, many were estimating that it could take 5-10 years, following the successful deployment of Iron Beam and other advances, the confidence one feels from Elbit officials about air-based lasers, is that they might be ready a good deal sooner, even if not in the imminent future.

While working on the issue, it also may be seen as a completely separate project in some ways, which is likely farther off in terms of progress and being ready to deploy it. That said, IDF 9900 officers and space war expert Tal Inbar have both discussed Israeli efforts to defend its assets in space from adversaries.

Previous Russian and Chinese tests using anti-satellite weapons have already caused dangerous debris to perpetually circulate within Earth's orbit, along with some natural occurring asteroid pieces.

These may be potentially eliminated or reduced by lasers which can eliminate an object without causing it to break into more and smaller destructive pieces.