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

The objective of this proposal is to develop an all solid-state inorganic glass optical limiter with low insertion loss in near infrared region from 800 to 1600nm. The proposed optical limiter is a nano-sized particle doped optical glass. It is an optical glass plate consisting of two layers: one contains nano-particles, and the other doesn't. At low incident optical power or pulse energy, its transmission is high (better than 90%). At high incident optical power or pulse energy, its transmission will drop due to the high speed non-linear response of the nano-particles. The glass composition is specially designed to ensure that the optical limiter is radiation-resistant and can be used in space environment. In Phase I, we will design glass compositions, fabricate glass samples and introduce nano-particles into the glass by special glass technique. The limiting effect will be measured by Z-scan method both before and after the optical limiter is irradiated under gamma ray and proton to evaluate the effects in space radiation environment.