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CW Mid-Infrared Tandem OPO Source

Award Information

Agency:
Department of Defense 		Branch:
Air Force 		Award ID:
32293 		Program Year/Program:
1997 / SBIR
Agency Tracking Number:
32293 		Solicitation Year:
N/A 		Solicitation Topic Code:
N/A 		Solicitation Number:
N/A
Small Business Information
Aculight Corporation
22121 - 20th Avenue SE Bothell, WA 98021 4408
View profile »
Woman-Owned: No
Minority-Owned: No
HUBZone-Owned: No
 
Phase 2
Fiscal Year: 1997
Title: CW Mid-Infrared Tandem OPO Source
Agency / Branch: DOD / USAF
Contract: N/A
Award Amount: $750,000.00
 

Abstract:

CW mid-IR sources, capable of delivering 5 Watts of average power, are required in the 2-5 micron range for IR counter measures. To date, solid state laser approaches have been limited to less than 1-2 Watts of average power due to absorption and adverse thermal effects in the nonlinear materials. Our approach to solving this problem is to use a relatively new nonlinear material, bulk periodically poled LiNbO3 (PPLN), as the converter for a conventional cw Nd:YAG pump laser source. The innovation in this work includes: (1) the use of two PPLN OPO devices in series, a "tandem" OPO, capable of delivering wavelengths in all three optical bands of interest, simultaneously; (2) PPLN operated at these wavelengths has an extremely wide angular and temperature acceptance that makes it relatively insensitive to problems encountered with other materials such as AgGaSe2; (3) PPLN has extremely large nonlinear gain that makes it possible to extract significant idler power in the presence of large idler absorption, 30o/ocm. Aculight has developed an OPO model for PPLN operated with large idler absorption that predicts >5 Watts of 4.5 micron output power with 40 Watts of 1 micron input pump power. Aculight will make available a 60 Watt output power cw Nd:YAG pump laser source with excellent beam quality that will allow testing of these devices at power levels a factor of 4-5 higher than that available to date.

Principal Investigator:

Dennis Lowenthal
2064519558

Business Contact:

Small Business Information at Submission:

Aculight Corp.
40 Lake Bellevue, Suite 100 Bellevue, WA 98005

EIN/Tax ID:
DUNS: N/A
Number of Employees:
Woman-Owned: No
Minority-Owned: No
HUBZone-Owned: No