High Power 1.6mum Solid-State Laser Transmitter

The Department of Defense interest in lasers at wavelengths with dependable and good atmospheric propagation in all significant littoral regions favors the 1.62 mm spectral region. However, there have been no previously identified attractive candidates forelectrically-excited diode pumped laser sources. This goal of this effort is to validate a particular ion-host combination that may allow such a source. The remaining critical issues are identified and a program proposed to resolve them. If the outcome isfavorable, this approach could leverage prior diode-pumped solid state laser efforts and be implemented rapidly for demonstration of weapons-level laser operation. The low altitude capability would complement existing BMDO and Air Force developments formissile defense, which are limited in application to altitudes higher than 30,000 feet. Additionally, the most favorable laser candidate for this application would be a laser that could produce collinear output beams at 2.7mm and 1.6mm with powers in theratio of approximately 2/3, respectively. A moderate power version of this diode-pumped laser could be of direct use to the BMDO Space-Based Laser Program (SBL). The long-wave output would be at the same wavelength as the HF chemical laser and could beused as a convenient on-orbit alignment source that would not consume any chemical reactants, while the shorter wavelength could be used for external alignment/boresight testing.The particular technology proposed here would have considerable commercialpotential in the low- to mid-power range, broadly speaking 10's of watts to 10's of kilowatts for a variety of industrial laser applications, in addition to DOD applications. In fact, its characteristics make it an ideal industrial laser source: (1) Thewavelength is compatible with delivery via conventional germanium silicate fiber optic wave guides; (2) The wavelength is also in a region that is characterized as