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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 433 records · Page 24
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1997

Investigation of Fiber Optics Based Phased Locked Diode Lasers

Optical power beaming requires a high intensity source and a system to address beam phase and location. A synthetic aperture array of phased locked sources can provide the necessary power levels as well as a means to correct for phase errors. A fiber optic phase modulator with a master oscillator and power amplifier (MOPA) using an injection-locking semiconductor optical amplifier has proven to be effective in correcting phase errors as large as 4pi in an interferometer system. Phase corrections with the piezoelectric fiber stretcher were made from 0 - 10 kHz, with most application oriented corrections requiring only 1 kHz. The amplifier did not lose locked power output while the phase was changed, however its performance was below expectation. Results of this investigation indicate fiber stretchers and amplifiers can be incorporated into a MOPA system to achieve successful earth based power beaming.

Burke, Paul D.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Predictions of Chemical Species via Diode Laser Spectroscopy

A technique to predict temperature and chemical species in flames from absorbance measurement of one chemical species is presented. Predicted temperature and mole fractions of methane and water agreed well with measured and published results.

Chen, Shin-Juh↗
NASA NTRS2003

Displacement damage characterization of laser diodes

Displacement damage effects from protons and neutrons are compared. Differences in the annealing properties were observed which are due to the different microscopic structure of the damaged regions from the two ty pes of particles.

Miyahira, T. F.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Diode-pumped laser research

The Laboratory for Oceans is currently working on the development of compact laser diode array (LD) pumped Nd:YAG lasers for use in space-based altimetry and ranging. Laser diode-array pumping technology promises to increase the electrical to optical efficiency of solid state lasers by an order of magnitude with a lifetime increase of nearly three orders of magnitude relative to today's conventional flashlamp-pumped laser systems. The small size, efficiency, and ruggedness make LD-pumped solid state lasers ideal for space based applications. In an in-house RTOP effort, a novel multiple-pass LD-pumped Nd:YAG laser amplifier was designed and tested to increase the 100 microjoule output pulse energy of the Lightwave laser oscillator. Preliminary results have yielded a round trip amplifier gain of about 15 percent using 7 microjoule LD-pump energy. As a parallel activity, funding was recently obtained to investigate the possible use of custom made fiber optic arrays to obtain an efficient optical coupling mechanism between the emitting laser diode-arrays and the target solid state laser material. Fiber optic coupling arrays would allow for the easy manipulation of the spatial emitting pattern of the diode pump sources to match either an end or side pumping laser configuration.

Ramos-Izquierdo, L.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Short range laser obstacle detector

A short range obstacle detector for surface vehicles is described which utilizes an array of laser diodes. The diodes operate one at a time, with one diode for each adjacent azimuth sector. A vibrating mirror a short distance above the surface provides continuous scanning in elevation for all azimuth sectors. A diode laser is synchronized with the vibrating mirror to enable one diode laser to be fired, by pulses from a clock pulse source, a number of times during each elevation scan cycle. The time for a given pulse of light to be reflected from an obstacle and received is detected as a measure of range to the obstacle.

Kuriger, W. L.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Generation of high-power nanosecond pulses from laser diode-pumped Nd:YAG lasers

Simulation results are used to compare the pulse energy levels and pulse energy widths that can be achieved with LD-pumped Nd:YAG lasers for both the pulse-transmission mode (PTM) and pulse-reflection mode (PRM) Q-switching methods for pulse energy levels up to hundreds of microjoules and pulse widths as short as 1 ns. It is shown that high-power pulses with pulse widths as short as 1 ns can be generated with PTM Q-switched in LD-pumped Nd:YAG lasers. With the PRM Q-switching method, pulse widths as short as 2 ns and pulse energy at the level of a few hundred microjoules can also be achieved but require pumping with 8-10-mJ AlGaAs laser diode arrays.

Chan, Kinpui↗
NASA NTRS1995

Alexandrite laser transmitter development for airborne water vapor DIAL measurements

In the DIAL technique, the water vapor concentration profile is determined by analyzing the lidar backscatter signals for laser wavelengths tuned 'on' and 'off' a water vapor absorption line. Desired characteristics of the on-line transmitted laser beam include: pulse energy greater than or equal to 100 mJ, high-resolution tuning capability (uncertainty less than 0.25 pm), good spectral stability (jitter less than 0.5 pm about the mean), and high spectral purity (greater than 99 percent). The off-line laser is generally detuned less than 100 pm away from the water vapor line. Its spectral requirements are much less stringent. In our past research, we developed and demonstrated the airborne DIAL technique for water vapor measurements in the 720-nm spectral region using a system based on an alexandrite laser as the transmitter for the on-line wavelength and a Nd:YAG laser-pumped dye laser for the off-line wavelength. This off-line laser has been replaced by a second alexandrite laser. Diode lasers are used to injection seed both lasers for frequency and linewidth control. This eliminates the need for the two intracavity etalons utilized in our previous alexandrite laser and thereby greatly reduces the risk of optical damage. Consequently, the transmitted pulse energy can be substantially increased, resulting in greater measurement range, higher data density, and increased measurement precision. In this paper, we describe the diode injection seed source, the two alexandrite lasers, and the device used to line lock the on-line seed source to the water vapor absorption feature.

Chyba, Thomas H.↗