Advances in high power cw YAG lasers and fiberoptic beam delivery

Filgas, David M.

doi:10.2351/1.5058536

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…An enabling feature for utilizing an RPL for material processing is the fact light between 0.5 and 1.9 pm can be transported fairly efficiently in fiber optics. For example, a 2.4-kW 1.06-_m beam has been transported 150 m in a l-mm diameter fiber with only 10% loss (Filgas 1992). So one could envision an industrial park established a few miles from the RPL.…”

Section: Dual-use Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power Beaming to Space Using a Nuclear Reactor-Pumped Laser

Lipinski¹,

Monroe²,

Pickard³

et al. 1994

AIP Conference Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present political and environmental climate may slow the inevitable direct utilization of nuclear power in space. In the meantime, there is another approach for using nuclear energy for space power. That approach is to let nuclear energy generate a laser beam in a ground-based nuclear reactor-pumped laser (RPL), and then beam the optical energy: into space. Potential space applications for a ground-based RPL include (1) illuminating geosynchronous communication satellites in the earth's shadow to exlend their lives, (2) beaming power to orbital transfer vehicles, (3) providing power (from earth) to a lunar base during the long lunar night, and (4) removing space debris. FALCON is a high-power, steady-state, nuclear reactor-pumped laser (RPL) concept that is being developed by the Department of Energy with Sandia National Laboratories as the lead laboratory. The FALCON program has experimentally demonstrated reactor-pumped lasing in various mixtures of xenon, argon, neon, and helium at wavelengths of 0.

show abstract

Section: Dual-use Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power Beaming to Space Using a Nuclear Reactor-Pumped Laser

Lipinski¹,

Monroe²,

Pickard³

et al. 1994

AIP Conference Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

<title>DOE reactor-pumped laser program</title>

Felty

Lipinski²,

McArthur³

et al. 1994

SPIE Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

FALCON is a high-power, steady-state, nuclear reactor-pumped laser (RPL) concept that is being developed by the Department of Energy. The FALCON program has experimentally demonstrated reactor-pumped lasing in various niixtures of xenon, argon, neon, and helium at wavelengths of 585, 703, 725, 1271, 1733, 1792, 2032, 2630, 2650, and 3370 nm with intrinsic efficiency as high as 2.5%. The major strengths of a reactor-pumped laser are continuous highpower operation, modular construction, self-contained power, compact size, and a variety of wavelengths (from visible to infrared). These characteristics suggest numerous applications not easily accessible to other laser types. A ground-based RPL could beam its power to space for such activities as illuminating geosynchronous communication satellites in the earth's shadow to extend their lives, beaming power to orbital transfer vehicles, removing space debris, and providing power (from earth) to a lunar base during the long lunar night. The compact size and self-contained power also makes an RPL veiy suitable for ship basing so that power-beaming activities could be situated around the globe. The continuous high power of an RPL opens many potential manufacturing applications such as deep-penetration welding and cutting of thick structures, wide-area hardening of metal surfaces by heat treatment or cladding application, wide-area vapor deposition of ceramics onto metal surfaces, production of sub-micron sized particles for manufacturing of ceramics, wide-area deposition ofdiamond-like coatings, and 3-D ceramic lithography.

show abstract