Concentrating laser pulses in space and time

Alastair D. McAulay

doi:10.1117/12.682229

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30 August 2006 Concentrating laser pulses in space and time

Alastair D. McAulay

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Proceedings Volume 6311, Optical Information Systems IV; 63110T (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.682229
Event: SPIE Optics + Photonics, 2006, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Projecting high peak power laser pulses to a specific location in space and time can significantly improve laser weapons, secure optical communications, and remote spectroscopy. Current laser systems send a pulsed beam from laser to target causing collateral damage to objects in the path for a laser weapon system, opportunities for compromising security in communications, and averaging of measurements along the path for spectroscopy. We analyze and simulate a system that beamforms M mode-locked lasers, each having N modes, to achieve a peak power at a target in space and time that is NM times greater than that for M non-mode-locked non-beamformed lasers. In low atmospheric turbulence, a peak power of 10kW can be projected to a point in space and time by a 10 × 10 array of 2W laser diodes, each having 50 modes. Effects of atmospheric turbulence are discussed and were investigated in our previous papers.

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Alastair D. McAulay "Concentrating laser pulses in space and time", Proc. SPIE 6311, Optical Information Systems IV, 63110T (30 August 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.682229

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