Compact Beam Director for High Power Lasers

The precise and timely control of the direction of laser beams is crucial to a wide variety of industrial, commercial, scientific and military activities. Examples include, material processing, LIDAR, micro/nano fabrication, target tracking/aiming andoptical metrology. This project will develop commercially viable refractive (and reflective) beam steerers based on the recently developed lubricated adjustable optical wedge. The refractive adjustable optical wedge is mounted on axis and the singlepivot point of the transmitted beam stays on the original axis, so there is no astigmatism from multiple pivot points (as there is with dual mirror and Risely Wedge beam steerers). It offers high transmission and more user friendly operation (Cartesianversus polar adjustments) than Risley Wedge beam steerers. In Phase I we demonstrated that with new and improved transparent lubricants it can handle high power lasers beams. The