Paper
30 August 2006 Concentrating laser pulses in space and time
Author Affiliations +
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.
© (2006) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
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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KEYWORDS
Mode locking

Pulsed laser operation

Fiber lasers

Weapons

Semiconductor lasers

Atmospheric turbulence

Spectroscopy

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