Coating-less laser

This proposal seeks to develop laser designs without any thin-film optical coatings, which are currently employed in all high power lasers. The final products of this technology would be long-life lasers for in-situ spectrometers, altimeters, gas lidars, and wind lidars, which require high peak power, single-frequency pulsed lasers.\n\nTowards the goal, the PI will first evaluate the principle of the\ncoating-less laser concept in continuous-wave (CW) mode, which can be tested faster and at lower cost than a pulsed laser. Pulsed mode opertion will be tested the following year. The key to the coating-less laser is to change the traditional non-planarring oscillator (NPRO) design to make all surfaces with total internal reflection (TIR), and use frustrated TIR for the output surface. Done correectly, this eliminates the need for any optical coatings. \n\nSuccessful demonstration of CW operation will represent a major advancement in high power laser design. A patent is likely. The PI will then will seek the next funding opportunity kin FY20 to demonstrate the pulsed coating-less laser. 5-10W will be the target for the pulsed version.

Lasers are key to many scientific instruments and well as navigational applications. However, they are difficult to build and operate for long life. The thin-film coatings on the optics are the most common failure mechanism in high-power lasers. For example, catastrophic coating damage happened in the engineering model (EM) of the GLAS (ICESAT-1) laser. The focus of this efort is to avoid the problems with coatings and develop a compact, ultra-stable, yet highly-reliable laser that will have long life in- orbit. The demonstrated coating-less laser concept revolutionize the traditional common understanding of laser structure, and would benefit variety of future NASA missions and instruments across multiple lines of businesses. The instrument application includes laser altimeter, gas sensing lidar, and in-situ spectrometer, and wind lidar. Other government agencies and industries would also be benefited from this technology, since reliable, stable, and high-power, laser is required in many applications, such as laser range finding and fundamental physics tests.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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