Lockheed Martin Coherent Technologies, Inc.

Lockheed Martin Corporation

Aerojet Rocketdyne of De, Inc.

Coherent Technologies, Inc.

Glenn Taylor Bennett

Bruce Gregory Tiemann

William S Brown

Duane Donald Smith

AnnMarie Oien

Joel Richard Blum

Michael Robert Browning

Larry Rubin

Mark Jon Kukla

Steven Craig Palomino

Robert Stoneman

Lawrence Francis Rubin

Ross Mackes

Dane Lewis Schnal

Tiffanie G D'Alberto

Munib Jalali

Timothy William Monarski

An apparatus includes a source configured to generate a beam of electromagnetic radiation propagating in a first direction and a spatial filter. The spatial filter is configured to restrict the beam of electromagnetic radiation in one or more dimensions and includes at least one set of rods including a first rod and a second rod. The first rod is a first cylindrical structure with a first axis in a first plane and the second rod is a second cylindrical structure with a second axis in a second plane parallel to the first plane. The first axis and the second axis are longitudinal axes, and the first and the second rods have shaped surfaces in portions of their respective surfaces facing one another.

Spatial filters with high power handling capabilities

A laser beam is utilized to ignite the fuel and oxidizer injected into a combustion chamber. An injector has a plurality of injector elements each injecting fuel and oxidizer into a flame holding zone adjacent the injector face plate where fuel and oxidizer are mixing at a rate to sustain flammability. The laser beam is introduced parallel to the injector face plate passing through the fuel and oxidizer mixing zones igniting the propellants. The propellants are ignited by having a laser beam tuned to a frequency to excite the oxidizer such that it will chemically combine with the fuel to form an ignition kernel in the flame holding zone. When a plurality of injector elements are ignited in this manner a controlled ignition process in the combustion chamber is achieved.

Laser ignition for liquid propellant rocket engine injectors

An optical system includes a waveguide having a guiding core formed from erbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet and a plurality of first cladding layers, wherein at least two of the first cladding layers are disposed adjacent opposite sides of the guiding core and a pump source for generating an electromagnetic radiation having a wavelength in the range of 900 to 1000 nanometers, wherein the pump source directs the electromagnetic radiation into at least the guiding core to pump the guiding core into an upper state.

Power scaling of Er:YAG laser with 9xx nm pumping

An optical assembly with mounting provided to effectively transfer heat away from an optic, such as a slab or waveguide amplifier or laser disk, while limiting internal stresses. The assembly includes an optic with a planar surface. A heat sink is positioned in the assembly with an upper surface next to the planar surface of the optic. The upper surface of the heat sink comprises a recessed surface defining a reservoir for containing a compliant heat transfer material. The assembly may further include a volume of the heat transfer material, such as a liquid metal or thermally conductive gel, in the reservoir of the heat sink. In one embodiment, the optic is a slab amplifier with a reflective coating or layer that directly contacts the heat transfer material in the heat sink reservoir or a foil or membrane is provided between the heat transfer material and the slab.

Low stress optics mount using thermally conductive liquid metal or gel

A noncollinear pumped solid state Raman laser or amplifier has a pump laser that transversely or noncollinearly pumps a solid state Raman gain material, with an intensity sufficient to produce a stimulated Raman laser output beam. The pump beam and the Raman beam are noncollinear when the Raman beam travels completely across the pump beam within the Raman gain material, or where the Raman beam completely separates physically, at some location in the pumped Raman gain material, from a virtual beam, which is collinear to the pump beam axis, and which has the same entrance spot size and beam divergence as the Raman beam. The device enhances the pump laser beam spatial homogenization to improve the wavefront smoothness and propagation performance from the pump beam to the Raman beam. Other configurations of the device have a plurality of mirrors, or prisms to fold the pump beam to cause the pump beam to pass through the Raman material a plurality of times, which increases the energy transferred from the pump beam to the Raman beam.

Noncollinearly pumped solid state Raman laser

Growing community of inventors

Boulder, CO, United States of America

Glenn Taylor Bennett