This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 10192 including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction, and Conference Committee listing.

The coherent amplification network (CAN) aims at developing a laser system based on the coherent combination of multiple laser beams, which are produced through a network of high beam quality optical fiber amplifiers. The scalability of the CAN laser facilitates the development of many novel applications, such as fiber-based acceleration, orbital debris removal and inertial confinement fusion energy. According to the requirements of CAN and the front end of high-power laser facilities, a millijoule polarized fiber laser system was studied in this paper. Using polarization maintaining Ytterbium-fiber laser system as the seed, and 10-μm core Yb-doped fiber amplifier as the first power amplifier and 40-μm core polarizing (PZ) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) as the second power amplifier, the all-fiber laser system outputs 1.06-mJ energy at 10 ns and diffraction limited mode quality. Using 85-μm rod-type PCF as the third power amplifiers, 2.5-mJ energy at 10-ns pulse width was obtained with better than 500:1 peak-to-foot pulse shaping ability and fundamental mode beam quality. The energy fluctuation of the system is 1.3% rms with 1-mJ output in one hour. When using phase-modulated pulse as the seed, the frequency modulation to amplitude modulation (FM-to-AM) conversion ratio of the system is better than 5%. This fiber laser system has the advantages of high beam quality, high beam shaping ability, good stability, small volume and free of maintenance, which can be used in many applications.

Pr³⁺ has three excited manifolds with the right energy spacings for emission between 3.5 and 5.5 microns, and can be excited efficiently using laser diodes developed for telecommunications. In the potential laser crystal Pr:RbPb₂Cl₅, we have observed strikingly strong fluorescence in this wavelength range following 1.53-micron excitation. Careful analysis indicates this must be due to two cross-relaxation processes that, together, efficiently convert one Pr³⁺ initially excited to the ³F₃ manifold into three ions excited to the ³H₅ manifold. This newly discovered “three-for-one” crossrelaxation process in Pr³⁺ may greatly enhance its utility as a mid-infrared laser ion.

This paper describes using a hot isostatic pressing (HIP) to improve II-VI crystal characteristics and diffuse metal ions into laser host crystals. Thin layers of metal are sputtered onto the surface of zinc selenide and zinc sulfide crystals prior to being HIP treated. The pre and post treatment optical properties for these materials are measured using various methods and at a variety of dopant concentrations.

The superior thermal and optical properties of transparent polycrystalline ceramics make them attractive alternatives to glass-based materials for laser gain media. Fibers have other advantages of compactness, vibration-resistance, and reduced cooling requirements. Recently it was found that surface roughness caused by grain boundary grooving dominated optical scattering even though there were other scattering sources in the fiber. Therefore, a lot of effort went to fabrication of fibers with smooth surfaces. A mechanical polishing method for polycrystalline YAG fibers was developed. The fiber surface roughness was reduced, while maintaining a circular cross-section. Surface-polished 1.5% Ho-doped polycrystalline YAG fiber, 62 mm long with 31 μm diameter, was fabricated, and lasing was demonstrated from this fiber. Effects of surface-polishing on the surface roughness and scattering coefficient are presented, and lasing characteristics are discussed.

DILAS offers a variety of high power pump diode lasers, optimized for different gain media. Systems optimized for DPAL pumping at 766nm will be discussed, including results demonstrating precise wavelength and spectral width control necessary to optimal overlap with atomic lines. In addition, pump modules optimized at 793 nm for Tm fiber laser pumping have been demonstrated, including a low SWaP module targeted for airborne applications. Lastly, DILAS’ line of high-efficiency/low-SWaP pump at 976nm for Yb fiber laser will be presented. Starting with the 330W IS46 module, DILAS has demonstrated >53% efficiency, and has now increased brightness up to 625W from a 225 um/ 0.22 NA fiber. Developments towards a module with >900W output power will also be shown.

To date high power, high energy pulses in the few ns rage have been unobtainable in semiconductor lasers due to the short carrier lifetime and long cavity buildup times. In this paper we show a wavelength and pulse-width tunable semiconductor laser that is able to achieve pulses in the range of a few ns at power levels above 1 kW leading to several μJ pulse energies. This was done by inserting a polarizing beam splitter (PBS) and a λ/4 Pockels Cell (PC) into the cavity of a vertical external cavity surface emitting laser (VECSEL) allowing access to the high energy stored in the VECSEL cavity. The PC is used to electronically control the cavity polarization and with proper tailoring, all the photons built up within the cavity may be completely dumped within a single photon round trip. After this the PC is switched off and the light in the cavity is allowed to build up once again. Once the light has built back up, the VECSEL is ready to be dumped again. This has been demonstrated in both single gain chip and dual gain chip setups. We record a maximum pulse energy of 7.78 μJ and peak power of 1.7 kW at a wavelength of 1019 nm with a tunability of 16 nm.

Kilowatt-class fiber lasers and amplifiers are becoming increasingly important building blocks for power-scaling laser systems in various different architectures for directed energy applications. Currently, state-of-the-art Yb-doped fiber lasers operating near 1060 nm operate with optical-to-optical power-conversion efficiency of about 66%. State-of-the-art fiber-coupled pump diodes near 975 nm operate with about 50% electrical-to-fiber-coupled optical power conversion efficiency at 25C heatsink temperature. Therefore, the total system electrical-to-optical power conversion efficiency is about 33%. As a result, a 50-kW fiber laser will generate 75 kW of heat at the pump module and 25 kW at the fiber laser module with a total waste heat of 100 kW. It is evident that three times as much waste heat is generated at the pump module. While improving the efficiency of the diodes primarily reduces the input power requirement, increasing the operating temperature primarily reduces the size and weight for thermal management systems. We will discuss improvement in diode laser design, thermal resistance of the package as well as improvement in fiber-coupled optical-to-optical efficiency to achieve high efficiency at higher operating temperature. All of these factors have a far-reaching implication in terms of significantly improving the overall SWAP requirements thus enabling DEW-class fiber lasers on airborne and other platforms.

High performance in combination with small size, low weight and low power consumption are among the main drivers in modern defense and commercial applications of laser systems. Consequently, designers of such systems strive for innovative solutions in the field of laser technology. Ten years ago Safran Vectronix AG (hereafter Vectronix) pioneered these activities with the fielding of the first fiber laser for hand-held rangefinders. This paper will deal with the latest evolution of an eye-safe fiber laser source which can emit two wavelengths for an extended range of applications. In order to comply with high performance requirements the laser on one side has to produce high enough pulse energy and on the other side – especially due to the ever increasing requirement for compactness – to use so called single-stage amplification in combination with bending insensitive fiber solutions. Also, the ASE (Amplified Spontaneous Emission) has to be reduced as much as possible as this light enters the eye safety equation but does not contribute in terms of range performance. All of this has to meet severe environmental requirements typical for most demanding defense applications. Additionally, the laser in its rangefinding mode has to produce a sequence of high frequency pulses in such a way that no substantial temperature effects would arise and thus impair either the pulse energy or the boresight alignment. Additionally, in this paper, a compact dual-stage dual-wavelength version of the above laser will be described, which has been developed to generate much stronger pulses for very long rangefinding applications.

Military, industrial, and medical applications have expressed interest in using ~1550nm laser diodes as efficient laser sources for reduced eye safety concerns, especially where free-space propagation is concerned. In addition, covert military applications, including pointers and illuminators, benefit from the spectral insensitivity of common sensor types to ~1.5um wavelengths. While more efficient than other sources, high-power broad-area laser diodes can sometimes require complex packaging and beam shaping/combining optics in order to meet requirements for brightness, uniformity, stray light, and environmental insensitivity. This paper will highlight and discuss a range of developments exploring laser diode components near 1.5um for free-space military applications, including broadarea high-power illuminators and highly-collimated pointers. Options for tailored beam conditioning and performance results will also be presented.

As long as man ventures into space, he will leave behind debris, and as long as he ventures into space, this debris will pose a threat to him and his projects. Space debris must be located and decommissioned. Lasers may prove to be the ideal method, as they can operate at a distance from the debris, have a theoretically infinite supply of energy from the sun, and are a seemingly readily available technology. This paper explores the requirements and reasoning for such a laser debris removal method. A case is made for the negligibility of eliminating rotational velocity from certain systems, while a design schematic is also presented for the implementation of a cube satellite proof of concept.

The detection of hazardous materials like explosives is a central issue in national security in the field of counterterrorism. One major task includes the development of new methods and sensor systems for the detection. Many existing remote or standoff methods like infrared or raman spectroscopy find their limits, if the hazardous material is concealed in an object. Imaging technologies using x-ray or terahertz radiation usually yield no information about the chemical content itself. However, the exact knowledge of the real threat potential of a suspicious object is crucial for disarming the device. A new approach deals with a laser drilling and sampling system for the use as verification detector for suspicious objects. Central part of the system is a miniaturised, diode pumped Nd:YAG laser oscillator-amplifier. The system allows drilling into most materials like metals, synthetics or textiles with bore hole diameters in the micron scale. During the drilling process, the hazardous material can be sampled for further investigation with suitable detection methods. In the reported work, laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is used to monitor the drilling process and to classify the drilled material. Also experiments were carried out to show the system’s ability to not ignite even sensitive explosives like triacetone triperoxide (TATP). The detection of concealed hazardous material is shown for different explosives using liquid chromatography and ion mobility spectrometry.

In a recent paper [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 33, 1931–1937 (2016)], the target-in-the-loop (TIL) phasing of an RF-modulated or multi-phase-dithered fiber laser array, fed by a linewidth-broadened master oscillator (MO) source, was investigated. It was found that TIL phasing was possible even on a target with scattering features separated by more than the MO’s coherence length as long as the received, backscattered irradiance changed with the array’s modulation or phase dither. To simplify the problem and gain insight into how temporal coherence affects TIL phasing, speckle and atmospheric turbulence were omitted from the analysis. Here, the scenario analyzed in the prior work is generalized by including speckle and turbulence. First, the key analytical result from the prior paper is reviewed. Simulations, including speckle and turbulence, are then performed to test whether the conclusions derived from that result hold under more realistic conditions.

Supercontinuum has great potential in defense applications due to its wide spectrum, high coherence and high brightness, and it has attracted more and more attention across the world especially in the visible and mid-infrared region like 3-5μm which is the atmospheric transparency window. Higher power, wider spectrum, and better spectrum flatness will be the dominant pursuit for the future development of supercontinuum. Currently silica based fiber are the dominant host for visible to near-infrared supercontinuum generation, and soft glass like fluoride fiber, chalcogenide fiber and tellurite fiber are widely used for mid-infrared supercontinuum generation due to their lower loss in the mid-infrared region. In this paper, the generalized non-linear Schrödinger equation is used to simulate the visible to mid-infrared supercontinuum generation in a tellurite fiber. A femtosecond laser at 1064 nm worked as the pump source. 1.5 μm and 2 μm lasers are generally first pump candidates to generate mid-infrared supercontinuum in tellurite glass because the zero-dispersion wavelength of the tellurite glasses is around 2.15 μm. However, 1064 nm laser has more advantages in application in terms of cost, structure, and power scaling, so it is meaningful to investigate whether 1064 nm laser can pump tellurite fiber to generate supercontinuum with wide bandwidth. The simulation results show that 500 nm-5000 nm supercontinuum can be generated in a tellurite fiber with less than 10 kW peak power for the pump laser, and the length of the tellurite fiber is only several millimeter. The simulation results provide important guidance for future supercontinuum development.

We report detailed theoretical analysis on the influence of the fused depth, launch mode and taper ratio on the performance of side-pumping combiner. The theoretical analysis indicates that the coupling efficiency and loss mechanism of the combiner is closely related to the fused depth, tapering ratio and the launch mode. Experimentally, we fabricate combiners consisting of two pump fibers (220/242 μm, NA=0.22) and a signal fiber (20/400 μm, NA=0.46). The combined pump coupling efficiency of two pump port is 97.2% with the maximum power handling of 1.8 kW and the insertion signal loss is less than 3%.

In order to study the damage characteristic of the contaminated resonating mirror in high power continuous wave (cw) laser system, we established a theoretical model based on the optical transmission theory with a gain medium. The optical propagation in the cavity is calculated utilizing a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) repeatedly until the convergence of the calculations tend to a steady-state oscillation mode pattern. The influence of the contaminant size, the contaminant number and the cavity structure on the damage characteristic of the resonating mirror is studied in the theoretical model.

A calibration model was created to illustrate the detection capabilities of laser ablation molecular isotopic spectroscopy (LAMIS) discrimination in isotopic analysis. The sample set contained boric acid pellets that varied in isotopic concentrations of ¹⁰B and ¹¹B. Each sample set was interrogated with a Q-switched Nd:YAG ablation laser operating at 532 nm. A minimum of four band heads of the β system B²∑ → Χ²∑transitions were identified and verified with previous literature on BO molecular emission lines. Isotopic shifts were observed in the spectra for each transition and used as the predictors in the calibration model. The spectra along with their respective 10/11B isotopic ratios were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR). An IUPAC novel approach for determining a multivariate Limit of Detection (LOD) interval was used to predict the detection of the desired isotopic ratios. The predicted multivariate LOD is dependent on the variation of the instrumental signal and other composites in the calibration model space.