Mitigation of Hidden Corrosion for Reduction in Total Cost of Ownership

Not Available High-power cw-like source of mid-infrared radiation are needed for infrared countermerasure systems that employ closed loop jamming. The spectral range 4.5-5 microns is particularly difficult to obtain with current systems. The overall technical objective of this program is sto develop a high-power cw-like source in the mid-infrared with emphasis on the range 4.5-5 microns. The system will be based on converted diode-pumped solid-state laser. The approach is to increase the conversion in an absorption length of the nonlinear material so that significant conversion is obtained even in the region of strong absorption. We will use a mode-locked laser to have high pump intensity, and quasi-phasematching to have high nonlinerity. Our pump laser will be a passively mode-locked Nd:YAG laser at 1 micron for robustness and manufacturability. The frequency converter will be a synchronously pumped OPO. Our baseline material will be PPLN, but we will also use other periodically poled ferroelectrics, notabley periodically poled MgO-doped LiNbO3.