SBIR/STTR Award attributes
The Agile Waveform, Spectrally Optimized, Midwave (AWSOM) laser system has been designed to meet the Navy’s needs for a compact and reliable high-power laser source in the midwave infrared (MWIR) spectral region. The pump laser is a high-power thulium-doped fiber (Tm:fiber) amplifier. Operation around two microns is required for parametric down-conversion to the MWIR bands of interest at high efficiency. The objective is to develop and demonstrate a Tm:fiber amplifier with a 200 W average power and sufficient peak power to drive nonlinear conversion processes that generate mid-infrared output. In addition, the Tm:fiber pump laser is designed with novel wavelength diversity that translates to mid-infrared output wavelengths through the freqeuency conversion process while remaining sufficiently spectrally narrow so that the MWIR emission fits within narrow atmospheric transmission bands. A net optical conversion efficiency of 50% from pump to MWIR is anticipated, resulting in >100 W of MWIR power for ~200 W of pump. This staging, coupled with the high efficiency of the Tm:fiber pump laser, support an architecture with >10% wall-plug efficiency and conformal packaging for small (
