High tuning speed carbon dioxide laser infrared radars are needed for remote chemical sensing. Present acousto-optic tuners suffer from performance limitations such as low duty cycle operation, slow switching speed, low resolution and most importantly, severe thermal beam distortion. The overall objective is to overcome the limitations of present acousto-optic tuners by developing novel long-wave infrared materials, designs and fabrication techniques. The proposed Phase I tasks include: a) developing a demonstration model Germanium acousto-optic tuner that eliminates the critical thermal degradation issue, and b) investigating new long-wave infrared materials and design techniques for feasibility research of advanced long-wave infrared acousto-optic tuners.
Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The new electronically tunable laser technology will have a large commercial market potential for various applications, including environmental sensing, manufacturing process control, bio-medical instrumentation, and most significantly, to wavelength division multiplexing telecommunication networks.
