Compact, Efficient, and Ultrafast Pulsed MWIR and LWIR Light Conversion Technologies for Directed Energy Applications (Cornell University)
Abstract
State-of-the-art mid-infrared pulsed light sources can now exceed the critical power for self focusing in atmosphere, allowing tens of millijoules of pulse energy to be self-guided in the mid-wave infrared (MWIR) and joules of energy in the long-wave infrared (LWIR). While this is a major milestone for the field of directed energy and other DOD applications involving projection of high peak laser power through atmosphere, the sources used ~ CO2 lasers and laser/optical parametric chirped pulsed amplifier (OPCPA) hybrid systems ~ possess key limitations for such applications in portability, bandwidth, efficiency, and adaptability for a dispersive environment. Our proposal addresses these limitations. Combining the huge transparency window of gas with the high-intensity, ultrabroadband waveguiding afforded by coated hollow-core fibers, wepropose to investigate three unexplored concepts for robust, efficient, high-peak-power, and ultrabroadband LWIR/MWIR light generation: adiabatic four-wave mixing, Raman amplification, and nonlinear multi-mode (waveguide) beam combining. These provide the portability and robustness of waveguided devices, but also a combination of greater bandwidth, efficiency, and adaptability than existing concepts, with traits including full bandwidth coverage of the high transmission segments of the mid-infrared atmospheric transmission windows (3.3-4.1 microns for MWIR and ~8-14 microns for LWIR), and adaptive control of pulse amplitude and phase for propagation through a fluctuating, dispersive environment. We aim to demonstrate a proof-of principlefor each of these techniques at modest pulse energies, and to investigate theirscalability to multi-TW peak powers ~ and therefore their promise for directed energy applications ~ which may be pursued in future research.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 20, 2019
- Source ID
- N000141912592
Entities
People
- Jeffrey Moses
Organizations
- Cornell University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy