Award Data

This proposal addresses the development and use of lightweight, low thermal-capacity reformable tooling materials for high-temperature composite processing evaluation, parts prototyping, trial production and full-rate production of PMC engine components. The weight-saving promise of high-temperature polymer matrix composites (PMCs) for engine components is offset by the very high costs of parts m ...

Tunable laser spectrometers are used by NASA for investigations of planetary atmospheric constituent gases. The availability of widely tunable long-wavelength (3 to 12?Ym) lasers operating at room temperature would allow such spectrometers to a wider range of gas species detection sensitivity increased by orders-of-magnitude relative to near-infrared lasers currently used in these applications. Ac ...

Improved measurements and understanding of cirrus clouds is essential for the accurate modeling of climate change and, in particular, for feedback effects that respond (positively or negatively) to greenhouse-gas global warming. Unfortunately, the reliable autonomous detection of sub-visual cirrus clouds is limited by the poor signal-to-noise ratio of existing micropulse lidars. Backscatter lida ...

Aculight proposes a fiber beam combining approach that provides the efficiency, thermal management, power-independent beam quality and ruggedness of fiber lasers with a system architecture scaleable to 10 kW and beyond. The approach is scaleable to 100+kW for military directed energy applications such as defense against rockets, artillery and mortars (RAM). The proposed work leverages Aculight†...

Aculight proposes a new spectral beam combining (SBC) system to utilize higher power, broader linewidth, fiber lasers to meet the demanding requirements of high energy laser (HEL) applications. The system is scalable to up to 100 kW output with diffraction limited beam quality by spectrally combining a number of high power fiber lasers operating at slightly different wavelengths. The proposed ap ...

Aculight proposes a scalable approach to passive phasing of fiber laser arrays to meet the requirements of high power, high spatial brightness sources for high energy laser (HEL) applications. The system design is scalable to up to 100 kW output with high brightness. The proposed approach will establish generalized scaling rules enabling the laser designer to confidently predict the degree to whi ...

Aculight proposes to develop a compact, fieldable instrument which can make direct measurements of aerosol absorption at the wavelengths 1.04, 1.6 and 2.1 microns. The instrument will be capable of measurement of absorption levels as low as 10-9 cm-1. The device will be based upon the use of fiber lasers and a novel photo acoustic detection technique which is immune to background acoustic noise. T ...

A high-quantum-efficiency long-lifetime photocathode is a key component for the synchronous photoinjection of GaAs photoemission guns, used in modern particle accelerators. High-power pulsed-laser sources, with picosecond pulse durations at GHz repetition rates, are needed to provide enough power to enable this application; yet, none are commercially available. This project will develop a highly ...

We propose a novel approach, based on emerging photonic crystal fiber technology, to generate high peak and average power in multi-kHz repetition-rate pulses at eye-safe wavelengths. The proposed optical source is configured to be packaged in a compact and rugged fashion, exhibit low power consumption in compliance with requirements of airborne applications, and produce an output of excellent beam ...

An all-fiber-based femtosecond laser featuring a large-core Yb-doped photonic crystal fiber amplifier is proposed. The laser can generate pulse energies in excess of 0.1 mJ while retaining a compact, modular, rugged architecture amenable to rapid field deployment in Laser-Induced-Breakdown-Spectroscopy (LIBS) sensors.