In total, the components and methods included:
An apparatus for producing manifestations of energy in free air instead of in a high vacuum as in the past.
A mechanism for generating tremendous electrical force.
A means of intensifying and amplifying the force developed by the second mechanism.
A new method for producing a tremendous electrical repelling force. This would be the projector, or gun, of the invention.[9][10]
The tube would project a single row of highly charged particles and there would be no dispersion, even at great distance.[citation needed] Because the cross section of the charge carriers could be reduced to almost microscopic dimensions and since the charged particles would self-focus via "gas focusing," an immense concentration of energy, practically irrespective of distance, could be attained.[citation needed] In 1940, Tesla estimated that each station would cost no more than $2,000,000 and could have been constructed in a few months.[citation needed]
Tesla claimed to have worked on plans for a directed-energy weapon from the early 1900s until his death.[11][12] In 1937, at a luncheon in his honor concerning the death ray, Tesla stated, "But it is not an experiment... I have built, demonstrated and used it. Only a little time will pass before I can give it to the world."[2]
In 1937, Tesla wrote a treatise, "The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media", concerning charged particle beam weapons.[13] Tesla published the document in an attempt to expound on the technical description of a "superweapon that would put an end to all war." This treatise is currently in the Nikola Tesla Museum archive in Belgrade. It describes an open-ended vacuum tube with a gas jet seal that allows particles to exit, a method of charging particles to millions of volts, and a method of creating and directing non-dispersive particle streams (through electrostatic repulsion).[13] Tesla tried to interest the US War Department,[14] the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia in the device.[15]
During the period in which the negotiations were being carried on, Tesla claimed that efforts had been made to steal the invention. His room had been entered and his papers had been scrutinized, but the thieves, or spies, left empty-handed. He said that there was no danger that his invention could be stolen for he had at no time committed any part of it to paper. The blueprint for the teleforce weapon was all in his mind.