Fiber Delivery Systems for Ultrashort Pulse Lasers Navy SBIR FY2010.3 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2010.3 Topic No.: N103-201 Topic Title: Fiber Delivery Systems for Ultrashort Pulse Lasers Proposal No.: N103-201-0177 Firm: IRFLex Corporation 300 Ringgold Industrial Parkway Danville, Virginia 24540-5548 Contact: Francois Chenard Phone: (434) 483-4304 Web Site: www.irflex.com Abstract: Future military laser-based defensive systems (LBDSs) will incorporate high peak energy (~1 mJ) ultrashort pulse (<1 ps) lasers. These short pulse mid-infrared lasers will require a delivery system that is low-loss, maintains good mode quality, small nonlinearities and minimal dispersion to prevent optical pulse distortion. Due to the amount of energy needed in these LBDS, conventional step-index fibers would not be an effective waveguide. These fibers would easily become damage due to their damage thresholds, and nonlinear and dispersive effects would cause pulse-broadening. An alternative to step-index fibers are hollow-core photonic band gap (HC-PBG) fibers. Silica based HC-PBG fibers have been shown to have low losses, high beam quality, high confinement and high damage thresholds. Unfortunately, silica HC-PBG fibers have high losses for wavelength beyond 2.3 microns. A HC-PBG fiber that can cover the entire mid-infrared wavelength range is required. The proposed work will demonstrate the feasibility of developing an innovative mid infrared HC-PBG fiber. The fiber will be designed with high confinement (> 99%) to enable ultrashort pulses (< 1 ps) with high peak energy (~1 mJ) to be transmitted with low-losses (< .1 dB/m) in the wavelength region between 2-5 microns. Benefits: Mid infrared hollow core photonic band gap (HC-FBG) fibers aid in the development of infrared counter measure systems. The power in these systems will keep increasing generation and a delivery system is needed that does not distort the beam quality and has high laser induced damage threshold. Besides use in military defensive systems, these fibers can be used to transport mid-infrared lasers. The mid-infrared lasers widely used today are CO2 and Erbium: YAG lasers. They are used in engraving, cutting, welding, laser surgery, skin resurfacing, and dermabrasion. These new HC-FBG fibers would allow for much higher power to be transported and a better mode quality than the delivery system that's available today for these lasers. These fibers can also be used to study the optical properties of gases at mid-infrared wavelength where high absorption limits the use of HC-PBG fiber made from silica. Return