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Tech Transfer Reports
Photonics/Optics

Laser System Offers Data Transmission Boost to Telecom and TV Broadcasters

A free-space optical laser communications technology that can compensate for atmospheric distortions in real time might soon break the bandwidth bottleneck for cellular...

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Tech Transfer Reports
Photonics/Optics

Laser Transmitter Keeps an Eye on Earth’s Climate

Fibertek (Herndon, VA) has leveraged three Missile Defense Agency (MDA)-funded Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards to develop a suite of laser products, one of which now forms the basis for an important space weather platform.

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

AlInGaN Bandgap and Doping Engineering for Visible Laser Diodes

There is a great need to develop chip-scale visible lasers for many applications, including laser sight, environmental monitoring, and compact pumping sources for ultra-short laser pulse generation, high-luminous full-color displays, new-generation solid-state lighting, etc. The...

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Photorefractive Polymers for Updatable 3D Displays

Photorefractive (PR) polymer composites developed for 3D display applications contain a copolymer as the hole-transporting host matrix. The copolymer approach is followed to reduce the phase...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Computational Photonics in Laser Communications Through Clouds

This work explored the concept of creating a partially coherent laser beam consisting of an array of spatially overlapping or separated Gaussian beams with possible individual...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Threshold Voltage Tuning of Metal-Gate MOSFETs Using an Excimer Laser

This work presents a localized method for tuning the threshold voltages (Vt) of multilayer metal-gate metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) devices with a spatial area theoretically limited by the wavelength of the laser beam. This technique allows an...

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Development of GaN-Based Nanostructure Photon Emitters

Gallium nitride (GaN)-based wide bandgap semiconductors are very important material systems for fabrication of photon emitters in a wide range of wavelengths. In particular, the light emitters in ultraviolet (UV), blue, and green wavelengths have been developed and demonstrated in recent years....

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Novel Wavelength Standards in the Near Infrared

The goal of this work was to develop a new class of portable optical frequency references based on sub-Doppler spectroscopy inside gas-filled, hollow-core photonic bandgap (PBG) optical fiber. The change in line width with core size, and narrower transitions inside a new “kagome” structured...

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Power Enhancement of a Rubidium Vapor Laser with a Master Oscillator Power Amplifier

The concept of alkali lasers was first suggested by Schalow and Townes in the late 1950s. In the 1970s, photo-dissociation of several of the alkali salts produced lasers with wavelengths ranging from the visible to the far infrared. Thirty years later, diode-pumped...

Briefs
Weapons Systems

Solid-State, High-Energy Lasers Based on Rare-Earth Doped Gallium Nitride

Laser-based directed-energy weapons (DEW) are important components for future Army missile defense systems. The diode-pumped, rare-earth (RE)-doped, solid-state laser is a very promising path towards achieving a DEW-sufficient level of average power from a reasonably compact...

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Analysis of Analog Photonic Links Employing Multiple-Channel (Arrayed) Receivers

Analog optical links are finding increased application in commercial and military systems ranging from radio-over-fiber applications, antenna remoting, and optical...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Photonic Recirculating Delay Line for Analog-to-Digital Conversion

Aconventional analog fiber-optic link can be augmented with a recirculating optical delay loop so as to realize an optically assisted analogto- digital converter (ADC) that...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Design and Development of a Package for a Diluted Waveguide Electro-Absorption Modulator

Externally coupled electroabsorption modulators (EAMs) are commonly used in order to transmit RF signals on optical fibers. Recently, an alternative device...

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Articles
Test & Measurement

Fiber Interferometry for Testing Military Avionics

Fiber-optic networks have benefited from nearly 20 years of continuous expansion (notwithstanding the brief, yet surprisingly quiet period from 2002 to 2005). For terrestrial networking, this...

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Tech Transfer Reports
Photonics/Optics

Commercial Spinoffs from Military R&D Programs

A near-infrared (NIR) detector with single-photon sensitivity can be used to improve many applications, from better eye-safe lasers to speeding up tomorrow’s optical computers.

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Photon-Counting Chirped Amplitude Modulation Ladar

This work is a follow-on to an effort to develop a method using Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode (GM-APD) photon-counting detectors in the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s chirped amplitude...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Evaluation of Performance of WL Fe-Based Spin-LEDs

A study was performed to evaluate the performance of a recently developed type of Fe-based spin-light-emitting diodes (spin-LEDs) that incorporate wetting layers (WLs). [The term "wetting...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Advances Toward Affordable High-Energy Laser Modules

A multidisciplinary research project entitled “Affordable High-Energy Lasers” has made numerous contributions to the development of several types of advanced laser modules, including not...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Lasing Consequences of Silicon Nanostructures

While silicon electronics has been a success in modem technologies, silicon photonics is still in development and in need of a laser source. Many approaches have been explored, from anodized silicon luminescence, to generating direct emissions by quantum-confinement, and to indirect down-conversion of a...

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Reduced Power Laser Designation Systems

This work contributes to the Micropulse Laser Designation (MPLD) project to develop a six-pound eye-safe micro-pulse laser system to locate, identify, range, mark, and designate stationary and moving targets. MPLD uses laser pulses of much lower energy and higher repetition rates than in existing laser...

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Continuous-Wave Laser Diodes Based on a Novel InGaAsNSb Material System

Laser sources operating in the spectral region from 2 to 3.5 μm are in demand for ultra-sensitive laser spectroscopy, medical diagnostics, home security, industrial process monitoring, infrared countermeasures, and optical wireless communications. Currently, solid-state...

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Photon Counting Chirped Amplitude Modulation Ladar

This work is a follow-up to prior efforts to develop a method using Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode (GM-APD) photon counting detectors in chirped amplitude modulation (AM) ladar receivers to...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Hybrid Micro-Electro-Mechanically Tunable Optical Filter

A prototype hybrid micro-electro- mechanically tunable optical filter (MEM-TF) based partly on an electrostatic-actuation principle has been built and tested as an essential component...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Laser-Based System for Measuring and Analyzing Vibrations

A system for noncontact measurement and analysis of vibrations of an electronic circuit board or a similar lightweight, nominally flat, rectangular object has been developed. This...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Near-Field Light Lenses for Nano-Focusing of Beams of Atoms

Near-field light lenses for focusing beams of light and beams of atoms to spots having a width of no more than several nanometers are undergoing development. There are numerous...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Developments in Adaptive Filtering and System Identification

Progress has been made on several fronts in a continuing program of research oriented toward the development of real-time algorithms, and computer and control systems that utilize the...

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Briefs
Materials

Kinetic Modeling of Laser-Induced D-T Fusion

A computational- simulation study was performed to assess the feasibility of laser-induced fusion of deuterium nuclei with tritium nuclei as a means of generating neutrons for use in neutron...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Electrical Filters Containing Multistage PBG Resonators

Electrical filters of a recently invented type are designed and constructed as transmission lines into which multistage photonic-band-gap (PBG) structures are incorporated. As used here,...

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Briefs
Photonics/Optics

BC VCSELs for RF/Photonic Links

Bipolar cascade (BC) vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) of a type intended specifically for use in radio-frequency (RF)/photonic links have been demonstrated. As used here, "RF/photonic link"...

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