Leanne J Henry

US Patent:

8503070, Aug 6, 2013

Filed:

May 24, 2011

Appl. No.:

13/114374

Inventors:

Leanne J. Henry - Albuquerque NM, US
Thomas M. Shay - Albuquerque NM, US

Assignee:

The United States of America as Represented by The Secretary of the Air Force - Washington DC

International Classification:

H04B 10/17

US Classification:

3593411, 359337, 359349

Abstract:

A method of implementing a high-power coherent laser beam combining system in which the output of a master oscillator laser having a linewidth broader than the Stimulated Brillouin Scattering linewidth of the laser signal is split into N signals and fed into an array of N optical fibers. This is a modification of the self-synchronous LOCSET and self-referenced LOCSET phase matching systems in which the optical path length of each optical fiber is matched to less than the signal coherence length of the master oscillator by using a path length matching signal processor to modulate temperature controlled segments of each optical fiber.

US Patent:

8472486, Jun 25, 2013

Filed:

Aug 17, 2011

Appl. No.:

13/211385

Inventors:

Leanne J. Henry - Albuquerque NM, US
Thomas M. Shay - Albuquerque NM, US
Gerald T. Moore - Albuquerque NM, US
Jacob R. Grosek - Seattle WA, US

Assignee:

The United States of America as Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force - Washington DC

International Classification:

H01S 3/30

US Classification:

372 3, 372 6

Abstract:

A method of generating high-power laser output in the 1100 to 1500 um spectral region having a controllable linewidth. A Raman amplifier comprised of one or more nested pairs of fiber Bragg grating cavities tuned to the 1, 2,. . . N−1order Stokes wavelengths is seeded with both the desired Nth order Stokes output wavelength and the corresponding zeroth-order Stokes pump wavelength. As the pump wavelength propagates through the apparatus, it is sequentially converted to the 1, 2,. . . N−1order Stokes wavelengths in the nested fiber Bragg grating cavities. The desired Nth order Stokes output wavelength is then amplified by the N−1Stokes order as it propagates through the nested fiber Bragg grating cavities. The linewidths of various Stokes orders can be controlled through adjusting resonant bandwidths of the fiber Bragg grating cavities by offsetting, through heating, the reflectivity bandwidths of each pair of cavity gratings.