The Controlled Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon (CEMPW) is a ship-mounted energy weapon that works via generating an electromagnetic pulse. The pulse is generated in a largely standard way; charge is fed to a circuit and stored by a capacitor. Once the charge is high enough it will ionize the air in between the incomplete circuit part (the so-called spark gap), completing the circuit and causing the massive charge to flow through a coil, which generates the pulse. Only, for this weapon, the gas between the spark gap is not air but helium, due to its high ionization energy that allows the pulses to be much stronger. Then, the pulse is fed through a barrel where powerful superconductors are used for their magnetic field to prevent the pulse from wandering away from its target. They come in many sizes, being capable of downing a small ship at their smallest size and entire fleets at their largest. Their main disadvantage is their deep energy inefficiency, as the power needed to run one properly is noticeable to prodigious, depending on the size. There’s also larger sizes being worked on that may be capable of blowing out entire cities, but these are still in development.
A lot of this information was sourced from the PBS Space Time episode; “EMP Attack: The Real Physics of an Electromagnetic Pulse” no art yet cause laze
