Laser Hardening of Submarine Optical Systems

The objective of the project is to explore opportunities provided by the fourth generation of optical components and materials for hardening submarine optical systems against high energy lasers and other sources of high power jamming or damaging radiation, including sunlight, and to develop and demonstrate prototype devices for different main types of optical radiation hazards: spectrally narrowband laser radiation, continuous wave or pulsed; and spectrally broadband radiation. The development will make use of such unique capabilities of the Fourth Generation (4G) Optics as optically asymmetric components and systems inherent to the technology, and the capability of optically switching those optical components between diffractive and non-diffractive states with low-voltage electrical fields as well as by the optical radiation itself. The development also will use the unique opportunities that 4G Optics provides for imaging systems. Since no light is lost in 4G optical components, and since they have high-efficiency in a broad band of wavelengths and angles, we will develop imaging systems for submarines overcoming fundamental aberrations of diffractive systems, and reducing size and weight of imaging devices in different spectral ranges. 4G Optics is most promising to provide effective solutions to the problem of laser hardening, particularly, for submarine optical systems, due to the opportunity of performing any optical function (lens, prism, beam shaping, etc.), even combinations of optical functions, with micrometer thin transparent material layers. Thus, laser hardening systems can complement optical systems of photonics masts and future HEL beam controllers without major modifications to the present opto-mechanical layouts within the masts.