Achievements and Problems of current Directional MID-IR Countermeasure Technology

The performance of tunable laboratory laser systems based on different OPO schemes covering the 3 µm to 5 µm spectral range will be presented. Special emphasis will be given to the current technical limitations and availability of pump laser characteristics and nonlinear crystal properties

Chemical oxygen iodine laser : technical overview and future potential

No abstract availabl

German COIL efforts: status and perspectives

Historically, COIL research in Germany has started with microwave excitation of an oxygen flow. But soon all efforts have been devoted to the chemical generation of excited singlet oxygen and have eventually given rise to a supersonic 10 kW class rotating disk driven device. A diode based diagnostic provides data of small signal gain and cavity temperature which emphasize the role of iodine injection for different penetration conditions. Heat release can lead to substantially higher temperatures as expected from adiabatic expansion. Power extraction is found to be in good agreement with theoretical predictions. Alternatively, small scale liquid jet generator experiments show encouraging 60 % efficiency. Besides air defense related applications and a study on space debris removal, results are given which are pertinent to the decommissioning of nuclear installations. In particular, laser cutting of concrete at 1.3 µm is demonstrated and theoretically scaled up to relevant power levels

High power COIL fiber transmission

Up to 11 kW of CW laser power at a wavelength of 1.3 µm has been successfully coupled into a 20 meter long optical fiber. The present experiment aimed at the evaluation of COIL application for the decommissioning of nuclear installations was performed using the existing COIL facility at the DLR Lampoldshausen site. This facility is briefly described in terms of its main components and operating parameters. A customer designed optical system by the HighYag company is presented: it enables the propper coupling of the 1.3 µm radiation into a 1000 µm fiber and the appropriate delivery of the laser beam onto the workpiece. The transmission losses of the COIL radiation range between 15 and 20 % as deduced from online measurements. Cutting examples in stainless steel, concrete, and other materials are given and discussed