We have improved on the characteristics of a diode-pumped, 1064-nm amplifier. The system can deliver 400 mJ @ 100 Hz with very limited wavefront distortion due to thermal effects. It follows that the amplifier can be powered on and reach full energy in a few seconds. The amplifier stable long thermal lens ensures that optical elements used downpath (potentially non-linear crystals for frequency conversion, or a telescope) are at no risk of laser damage, even during the short warm-up time. Additionally, the amplifying system can be operated at any repetition rate up to 100 Hz, and at any energy level, without having to adjust the hardware. The ease of operation, and number of shots saved on the diode lifetime can be a critical advantage in space. The amplifier pumping design enables duplication of the pump source with only 3% increase of the system mass: the doubling of the stacks does not require any additional optical component, nor any moving part. With solar radiation, the diode stacks are among the weakest link of the system, so this unique property is valuable for space applications. The laser amplifier was set-up and characterized as a laboratory breadboard, and a CAD version of a robust system was drawn and analyzed. We will review the properties of this compact amplifying system. Due to its uniform output beam distribution, it is very well suited for non-linear frequency conversion, and for long-range space applications. Additional presentation content can be accessed on the supplemental content page.
We report on the development and characteristics of infrared solid state laser as compact and robust light sources for
Directed Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM). DIRCM against infrared missile seekers requires wavelength tunable laser sources. When adding an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) to a pump laser source, it is possible to cover the 2-5 μm wavelength transmission windows. After a risk reduction phase of five years, CILAS has designed a solid state laser source (SSLS) adapted for DIRCM jamming and has delivered a prototype to DGA-MI for testing and evaluation. The purpose of this paper is to recall the requirements of such a laser source, to present the main design trade-off and the testing experiments. This work is supported by the French MoD (DGA).
A new passive technique approach to phase lock a laser array is proposed and analyzed. It improves the laser
combining efficiency with a large number of emitters. Our architecture combines selective coupling based on
phase-contrast filter and resonant phase nonlinearity of amplifiers. A numerical study predicts that with 20
fiber lasers the architecture leads to a phase locking efficiency which is twice the value observed up to now in
published experiments.
We report on the development and characteristics of athermal diode-pumped designator modules as Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) for targeting application. These modules are designed with the latest diode-pumped technology minimizing volume and power consumption. The core technology allows to address multi-platforms requirements such as land or airborne. Products are composed of a Laser Transmitter Unit (LTU) and Laser Electronic Unit (LEU) for modular approach.
We report on the development and characteristics of infrared solid state laser as compact and robust light sources for
Directed Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM).
DIRCM against infrared missile seekers requires wavelength tunable laser sources. When adding an optical parametric
oscillator to a pump laser source, it is possible to cover the 2-5 μm wavelength transmission windows. For more than
five years, CILAS has developed critical technologies for the development of a laser source adapted for DIRCM
application. This includes: The choice of the crystals, the optical coatings in band II, the thermal management and an
optimized oscillator configuration insensitive to repetition rate variation in a wide range. The scope of this presentation is
to recall performances of the technologies developed and to present the technical base line of our laser concept. This
work is supported by the French MOD (DGA).
The characteristics and output performances of a long pulse, e-beam driven, large volume KrF laser are presented. This laser, designed and realized at the IMFM, delivers pulses of 400 ns duration with maximum energy of about 200 J. It is now used in laser matter-interaction experiments at (lambda) equals 248 nm.
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