All Solid State, High Speed Optical Limiter for Laser Communications Systems

The objective of this proposal is to develop a new type of all solid-state inorganic glass optical limiter with low insertion loss in the near infrared region from 800 to 1600nm. The proposed optical limiter is a nano-sized particle doped optical glass for protection of laser communication systems used in the space environment. In Phase I, the limiter has been designed as an optical glass plate consisting of two layers: one contains nano-particles, and the other doesn't. Very good optical limiting effect under 8 ns pulse Nd: YAG laser has been observed. In Phase II, we will optimize the chemical compositions of the optical limiter, improve our glass fabrication technique for the specially designed glass, optimize fabrication parameters for the limiter preparation to reduce linear optical loss and enhance the limiting effect. We will investigate the performance of the optical limiter for a digital optical communications system under irradiation with ultrashort laser pulses. The effects under space radiation environment on optical limiter performance using gamma ray irradiation as well as proton irradiation will be measured.