Project Title:
A Solid State Tunable Laser for Remote Sensing Applications
08.08-0537
A Solid State Tunable Laser for Remote Sensing Applications
Lasergenics Corp.
P.O. Box 33010
Los Gatos
CA
95031-3010
Schlecht
Richard
NAS1-18303
Amount:
LaRC
NAS1-17941
Abstract:
During Phase I of our SBIR program, four titanium doped sapphire crystalswere evaluated. Two of the crystals from separate vendors proved to be of laser
quality, indicating that crystals can be produced by multiple vendors. Pumping configuration
and laser physics analyses indicated that a longitudinal pumping configuration should
be used. It was determined that at the near infrared laser lines, which are of interest,
for remote sensing, a large conversion efficiency of 50% is possible from the pump
lasers. There is little likelihood of optical damage occurring. Several techniques
for wavelength control were evaluated with two appearing attractive. It was determined
that relatively efficient crystals are available for second harmonic generation and
sum frequency generation which would extend its output from the fundamental band
of 650nm to 1000nm into the 90nm to 500nm region. System scaling issues were addressed,
indicating large energies per pulse are obtainable from a single aperture device.
Based on these results, we are proposing to develop a breadboard
laser to demonstrate the capabilities of this system for scaling to the 1 Joule
per pulse energy level. The specifications of the breadboard laser are 100mJ per
pulse at a 10 Hz repetition rate and 1 pM laser line width at 724,760 and 940nm.