Phys.org January 31, 2023 High power lasers have become useful scientific tools, but their large size is determined by their low damage-threshold optical media. A more robust and compact medium for amplifying and manipulating intense laser pulses is plasma. An international team of researchers (UK, Germany, Portugal) has demonstrated, experimentally and through simulations, that few-millijoule, ultra-short seed pulses interacting with 3.5-J counter-propagating pump pulses in plasma, stimulate back-scattering of nearly 100 mJ pump energy with high intrinsic efficiency, when detuned from Raman resonance. This is due to scattering off a plasma Bragg grating formed by ballistically evolving ions. Electrons are […]
Tag Archives: High power laser
Researchers produce laser pulses with record-breaking intensity
Phys.org May 6, 2021 A team of researchers in South Korea demonstrated laser intensity exceeding 1023W/cm2 with the CoReLS petawatt (PW) laser. After wavefront correction and tight focusing with a two-stage adaptive optical system and an f/1.1 (=300mm) off-axis parabolic mirror, they obtained near diffraction-limited focusing with a spot size of 1.1 µm (FWHM). From the measurement of 80 consecutive laser shots at 0.1 Hz, they achieved a peak intensity of (1.1±0.2)×1023W/cm2, verifying the applicability of the ultrahigh intensity PW laser for ultrahigh intensity laser–matter interactions. From the statistical analysis of the PW laser shots, they identified that the intensity […]
Dynetics Will Build and Test a US Army 100 Kilowatt Combat Laser
Next Big Future May 16,2019 The US Army wants 100-kilowatt laser on larger armored trucks. The Army wants tests in 2022 of integrated lasers on High Energy Laser Tactical Vehicle Demonstrator. The design integrated power and thermal management system to successfully meet or exceed the requirements of the HEL TVD program. The system will provide the high level of electrical power and thermal management required in a compact, power dense package with the responsiveness required for directed energy applications. There are also plans for smaller Stryker armored vehicles with 50-kilowatt lasers that could see deployment starting as early as 2024…read […]
A powerful laser breakthrough
Science Daily April 27, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (Lehigh University, Sandia National Laboratory) demonstrated a new hybrid grating scheme that uses a superposition of second and fourth-order Bragg gratings that excite a symmetric mode with much greater radiative efficiency. The scheme is implemented for terahertz QCLs with metallic waveguides. Peak power output was 170 mW. The hybrid grating scheme is simpler to implement than distributed feedback (DFB) schemes and could be used to increase power output for surface-emitting DFB lasers at any wavelength… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE