Compact, Rugged and Ultrafast Femtosecond Laser for Hazardous Material Detection at Range

Arbor Photonics proposes to design a compact, rugged, high-power femtosecond (fs) pulsed fiber laser system capable of delivering pulse energy greater than 100 J, pulse width narrower than 100 fs, and bandwidth broader than 25 nm. Successful development of such a laser will enable significant progress toward real-world applications of advanced, pulse laser spectroscopy for remote detection of hazardous materials. This laser system architecture will be based on the use of advanced technologies including Chirally-Coupled Core (3C) fiber in fiber-based component and amplification stages, fiber Bragg gratings for gain shaping, and volume Bragg gratings for pulse stretching and compression. 3C fibers support very large mode field diameters while maintaining a single-mode-quality beam. Large-core, single-mode-quality fiber is a necessity for meeting the challenging requirements of the specified system. Fiber Bragg gratings and volume Bragg gratings will be exploited as robust, compact means of spectral and dispersion control. Development work required to meet this SBIR"s Phase I objectives includes investigation of spectral shaping techniques based on fiber Bragg grating filters, laser system design, chirped-pulse system design based on volume Bragg gratings, and a size, weight, and power assessment.