Plasma SBS for Laser Optical Protection

Lasers are an increasing threat to Army personnel and optical systems in war fighting operations. Increasingly powerful lasers are being developed by, fielded, or sold to many potentially hostile nations. The Army Main Battle Tank (MBT) is vulnerable to high power lasers in the visible spectrum, particularly laser energy coupled in the MBT periscope viewing system. Conventional filtering methods are invective due to broadly tunable lasers and increasing laser pulse energies/average powers. SARA proposes a novel, protective measure using plasma/optical interactions and nonlinear effects to create an optical shield against laser attack. The SARA approach is independent of laser wavelength, operates real time to defeat multiple line or frequency swept lasers and scales to high average power (weapon class lasers). Further, related and plasma effect can be harnessed in the same SARA concept to simultaneously provide a means for reduction of tank optical signatures against lower power targeting lasers. Under this program both of these effects (high power optical protection and low power optical signature mitigation) will be demonstrated and optimized then engineered into a flexible test system to be used in laboratory and field demonstration tests.