Multiple Cross-section Holography of Explosive Events

Laser photography has been used successfully to record dynamic, explosive events by exploiting the narrow tunable bandwidth and short pulse time of the laser. The events are viewed through narrow bandwidth filters and fast shutters that render the ambient light and the light generated by the explosion itself negligible compared to the laser energy. Laser photography techniques have been applied primarily in laboratory environments and must undergo considerable refinement to become applicable in harsh, full scale, outdoor environments. The detailed examination of many explosive events are still obstructed by unuseful light and by out-of-focus debris. The proposal describes a path for technology transfer and also incorporates a unique method for exploiting laser coherence properties to enhance the filtration and viewing of explosive events. This combination with refined methods for filtering and shuttering will lead to a design of a versatile optical recording system for the study of explosive events.