After receiving more than $50 million in government contracts, a company that once promised to revolutionize warfare with a weapon that shoots lightning bolts is seeing its hopes for further federal funds vaporized. 

The U.S. Marine Corps recently ended a contract with Applied Energetics, a Tucson-based firm that has been working for years on directed energy weapons for the military, iWatch News has learned. The company’s efforts were detailed earlier this year in a Center piece on the Pentagon’s troubled unit designed to fight roadside bombs, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO.

The terminated Marine contract was for an Applied Energetics weapon designed to zap roadside bombs with bolts of lightning guided by ultra-short pulsed lasers; the company’s work on the weapon and similar systems had attracted $54 million in federal funds since 2005.