Widely Tunable High Power Quantum Cascade Laser Arrays for Standoff Detection

As part of an ongoing ECBC Phase II STTR (Topic #A14A-T015), Pendar Technologies is developing in collaboration with MIT Lincoln Laboratory a broadly tunable, fully beam combined, high power source that is based on Pendars proprietary distributed feedback quantum cascade laser array (DFB-QCLA) technology. The sequential Phase II SBIR proposed herein aims at improving this source (in particular in term of spectral purity) and integrating it with a quartz-enhanced photo-acoustic (QEPAS) gas sensor with high maturity (TRL 6) to detect chemical warfare agents (CWAs) and major toxic industrial compounds (TICs) within NATOs ITF-25 list, with a sensitivity consistent with AEGL-3 (10 min) levels for a few seconds integration time. At this stage, only chemicals absorbing in the spectral region covered by the initial Phase II arrays (7-11 m) will be detected, but future extension of the source to other spectral ranges can be realized. The SWaP budget will be traceable to a handheld unit, with design choices reflecting this constraint: pulsed lasers for high efficiency, compact photoacoustic sensor, no or little vacuum requirement.