Tag: laser modules

Laser technology for military applications

Nowadays U.S. Army Infantry receives high threats, while they advance through wooded, rocky terrain to maneuver to contact and “close with the enemy” resulting in facing the most incoming fire of any army unit. This is the main reason why the U.S. Army needs additional protection. The application of laser technology is considered to be a possible solution to the problem.

To be more precise, modern laser technologies can be implemented for the use of pre-shot detection, which means that such laser systems embedded in Army weapons would allow identifying enemy weapons before they are fired. The laser system can detect an optical part of a weapon (glass) directed at a military servant. It should be noted that such an opportunity for laser technology to see a person and detect a shot threat provides a great benefit.

Thus, according to researchers, the laser system technology allows soldiers to find their enemies without first being fired upon, leading to saving human lives and changing military tactics. Nevertheless, these portable laser system emitters are still in development. Herewith, the developed laser technology should be used along with the Army’s existing Rapid Target Acquisition system that applies wireless data links to connect night vision goggles with rifle weapons sights.

Additionally, the application of such laser devices by military servants offers numerous new combat benefits. For example, laser system weapons are used both as an offensive weapon and a “detector” capable of finding targets. Herein, there are scalable laser devices, which means that they are able to collect several laser beams or fire in more narrow configurations offering various options.

The application of the defensive laser system for detection may include soldier-fired offensive laser module weapons. The laser beams are very rapid (they travel at the speed of light), moreover, the laser devices are highly quiet. Therefore, it is possible to fire silently, allowing military servants not to give up their position.

In spite of the fact that weapons based on laser technology are in development stages, they are already used in the following fields of laser application: firing laser devices for army strykers, the weapons system for the Navy, ground-testing laser weapons for the Air Force. A potential application of the laser system includes missile defense and armed drones engineered for space flight.

The use of laser technologies for military purposes has several developmental challenges. The thing is that mobile power sources are required for laser systems to operate, also portable laser devices pose some technical challenges which are necessary to be improved.

Optromix is a fast-growing fiber laser manufacturer and a vendor of optical fiber sensors and optical monitoring systems. The company offers fast turnkey solutions and creates sophisticated fiber laser systems for special purposes. Optromix uses only its technologies and develops a broad variety of fiber lasers. If you have any questions or would like to buy a laser system, please contact us at info@optromix.com

Organic fiber laser systems enlarge their applications

According to the last research, now it has become possible to design accessible laser systems that are able to emit laser beams of a wide range of colors resulting in new fields of applications from communications and sensing systems to displays. Thus, researchers from Japan have developed an optically pumped organic thin-film laser module that allows continuously producing laser beam light for 30 ms that is about 100 times longer than previously used laser devices.

Compared to conventional inorganic laser systems (used in CD drives and laser pointers), the principle of organic thin-film laser module’s operation is based on a thin layer of organic molecules as the laser medium that emits laser beams by producing and intensifying light during the excitement of an energy source. Herewith, an intense ultraviolet laser beam light from an inorganic laser system is regarded as the energy source.

Additionally, the organic laser system is highly potential because it offers such an advantage as the opportunity to more easily reach colors that are virtually impossible with inorganic laser devices. It should be noted that “by designing and synthesizing molecules with new structures, laser beam emission of any color of the rainbow is possible.” Although organic thin-film laser systems have been studied for a long time, such features as degradation and loss processes have significantly restricted the duration of laser beam emission.

Nonetheless, the researchers succeeded to overcome the mentioned challenges and enlarge the duration of the laser system process by unifying three strategies:

The use of an organic fiber laser medium with triplet excitons that absorb various colors of laser beam light than that produced by the laser system to decrease main losses originating from the absorption of emission by packets of energy.
The problem of thermal degradation is solved by manufacturing the laser devices on a crystalline silicon wafer and gluing a piece of sapphire glass on top of the organic laser system medium with a special polymer. The thing is that the silicon and sapphire material, applied in the organic thin-film laser module, are considered to be good heat conductors that reduce the heat level in the laser devices.
The strategy of optimization of a frequently used grating structure or mixed-order distributed feedback structure installed under the organic laser system medium to achieve optical feedback, the input energy required to keep the laser devices allows reducing to new lows.

These laser systems can be used in extreme environments, that is why searching for new laser techniques to take away any inefficiencies and prevent laser devices from overheating. Moreover, the combination of the organic laser modules with inorganic ones enables the production of colors that are difficult to create by employing a conventional type of lasers, with applications in process spectroscopy, communications, displays, and sensing systems.

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Laser Systems oscillators for more powerful fiber lasers

Physicists from Switzerland have developed a sub-picosecond thin-disk laser system oscillator that performs a record-high 350-watt average output laser beam power resulting in a new standard for the creation of more powerful fiber lasers. Herewith, ultrafast laser beam sources are at the center of fundamental scientific researches and industrial applications of fiber laser systems, including high-field physics experiments with attosecond temporal resolution to micrometer-accuracy machining of materials.

Nonetheless, repetition rates of several megahertz and average output powers of hundreds of watts remain still required from laser systems to put the envelope forward. The most promising way to perform such high-power laser beam sources is to produce them by increasing the power output from fiber laser oscillators rather than applying multi-stage amplifiers because of their complexity. The thing is that power increasing results in reliable and potentially cost-effective fiber laser systems.

The physicists have recently put the power-scaling approach to a new level. To be more precise, they offer a laser beam source that provides both the simplicity and high repetition rates of laser system oscillators with record-high average output power from this type of fiber laser. The researchers use a thin-disk laser system oscillator as the base, “where the gain medium, the material in which the quantum processes leading to lasing take place, is shaped like a disk of around 100 micrometers thin”.

The thing is that the shape of such laser systems provides a relatively big surface area that favors cooling. Nevertheless, thermal effects remain the main disadvantage because of which the record output laser beam power was considered to be at 275 watts. At present, several advances in thin-disk laser technology enable the physicists to reach an average output power of 350 watts, with laser beam pulses that are only 940 femtoseconds long, they have an energy of 39 microjoules and repeat at an 8.88-megahertz rate. It should be noted that these parameters are the subject of constant interest in both scientific and industrial applications.

Finally, the physicists have succeeded in the development of a technique that allows several passes of the pump laser beam through the gain medium without inflicting detrimental thermal effects, therefore, decreasing the stress on the relevant components. The opportunity to check thermal effects makes it possible to overcome the limitations of the 275-W level. Moreover, it is planned to use these laser system oscillators for the future achievement of 500 W or even higher.

Optromix is a manufacturer of laser systems, optical fiber sensors, and optical monitoring systems. We develop and manufacture a broad variety of fiber lasers, high-powered fiber lasers, and other types. We offer simple laser products, as well as sophisticated fiber laser systems with unique characteristics, based on the client’s inquiry.

We manufacture laser modules using our technologies based on the advanced research work and patents of the international R&D team. Laser processes are of high quality, high precision, easily automated manufacturing solutions that provide repeatability and flexibility. If you have any questions or would like to buy a fiber laser system, please contact us at info@optromix.com

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