USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Joseph R Penano

Phillip A Sprangle

Antonio C Ting

Bahman Hafizi

Daniel F Gordon

Marlan O Scully

Steven H Gold

Michael H Helle

Theodore G Jones

Dmitri Kaganovich

Richard P Fischer

Leonard Dale Bibee

A high power ultrashort chirped pulse amplifier laser system, with a chirped pulse amplifier laser module including an optical pulse stretcher, at least one optical power amplifier, and an optical pulse compressor, and a beam interferometer module in the optical path. The beam interferometer receives splits the pulse into at least two pulses, adds a time delay to at least one of the pulses and recombines the pulses to produce a temporally modulated pulse. The resulting modulated output pulse from the CPA laser module can have enhanced laser contrast due to greatly reduced subpicosecond pedestal in the immediate region of the peak pulse, or can have other desirable characteristics.

Pulse-shaping interferometer for chirped-pulsed amplification laser

A laser pulse from an ultrashort pulse laser (USPL) is fired into the atmosphere. The USPL pulse is configured to generate a plasma filament at a predefined target in the atmosphere, in which free, or 'seed,' electrons are generated by multi-photon or tunneling ionization of the air molecules in the filament. A second pulse is fired into the atmosphere to form a heater beam that impinges on the plasma filament and thermalizes the seed electrons within the plasma filament, leading to the collisional excitation of the electrons in the filament. The excited electrons collisionally excite various electronic and vibrational states of the air molecules in the filament, causing population inversions and lasing, e.g., exciting the C&#x3a0;&#x2192;B&#x3a0;(v=0&#x2192;0) transition of the Nin the atmosphere to cause lasing at 337 nm.

Remotely induced atmospheric lasing

An electron injector including an electron source and a conducting grid situated close to the electron source, one or more RF accelerating/bunching cavities operating at the same fundamental RF frequency; a DC voltage source configured to bias the cathode at a small positive voltage with respect to the grid; a first RF drive configured to apply an RF signal between the cathode and grid at the fundamental and third harmonic RF frequencies; and a second RF drive configured to apply an RF drive signal to the accelerating/bunching cavities. Electrons are emitted by the cathode and travel through the grid to the accelerating/bunching cavities for input into an RF linac. The first RF drive applies a first RF drive signal at the fundamental frequency of the linac plus higher harmonics thereof to the gap between the cathode and the grid to cause the emitted electrons to form electron bunches and the second RF drive applies a second RF drive signal to the accelerating/bunching cavities on the other side of the grid to further accelerate and optimize the size of the electron bunches. Because the applied RF signals contain at the fundamental linac frequency, the electrons are bunched at that frequency and each RF bucket of the linac is filled with an electron bunch.

High average current, high quality pulsed electron injector

An embodiment of the invention includes an apparatus. The apparatus includes a plurality of lasers comprising a plurality of laser paths. The apparatus further includes an incoherent combining beam director in the plurality of laser paths. The apparatus also includes a plurality of optical elements in the plurality of laser paths between the plurality of lasers and the beam director.

Apparatus for incoherent combining of high power lasers for long-range directed-energy applications

A method for generating an acoustic source in a liquid includes transmitting an optical pulse through the liquid so the optical pulse reaches Ithrough pulse compression and ionizes a liquid volume. The pulse compression is achieved through at least one of a) group velocity dispersion induced longitudinal compression of a frequency chirped optical pulse and b) transverse self focusing via a nonlinear optical Kerr effect. The acoustic source can be generated at a controllable remote location many meters from the optical source. The optical source can be a laser or other suitable optical device.

Growing community of inventors

Fairfax Station, VA, United States of America

Joseph R Penano