Lasers & Sources

Logos and LLE to build high-energy laser for shock-compression research

Aug. 13, 2014

Logos Technologies, in partnership with the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics, received an award to design, build, and install a sophisticated high-energy laser at Argonne National Laboratory for materials research.

Gail Overton

Defense and energy company Logos Technologies (Fairfax, VA), in partnership with the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE; Rochester, NY), received an award to design, build, and install a sophisticated high-energy laser at the DOE/NNSA sponsored, Washington State University (WSU; Pullman, WA)-led, Dynamic Compression Sector (DCS) at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL; Argonne, IL).

Funded through WSU's Institute for Shock Physics, the Logos Technologies-led team will provide a laser-driven shock compression capability at DCS to produce high pressure, short duration, shock waves. By coupling tunable, high energy X-ray beams to state-of-the-art shock wave drivers, DCS will enable unprecedented real-time, in-situ atomic-scale investigation of materials subjected to extreme dynamic compression.

The Logos Technologies-led team will design and deliver a frequency tripled glass laser based on proven technologies, including state-of-the-art beam-smoothing techniques developed at LLE. The laser will deliver 100 J of energy in consistent, accurate and well-characterized nanosecond-scale pulses.

"Logos Technologies' employees have extensive experience developing and building high-energy lasers for a range of applications," said John Marion, president of Logos Technologies. "Our approach here, working with the Washington State and Rochester teams, is focused on the specific needs of the users, and places a very high value on performance, reliability and ease of use."

In addition to its robust optical performance, this laser will also be much easier to operate than other systems of this scale and function. Logos Technologies’ newly developed control system software will allow a single operator to align, maintain, and fire the laser. This software can also be applied to many other laser systems around the world, in support of a wide array of missions and uses.

"This partnership offers a valuable and diverse set of skills that will make this kind of advanced laser-driven capability more accessible to researchers," said professor Robert McCrory, LLE director. "The combination of proven, high-performance laser technology and cutting-edge control systems will not only enable ambitious new research, but also help make it easier to operate."

Other scientific collaborators in the DCS research activities are the DOE/NNSA National Laboratories (Lawrence Livermore, CA and Los Alamos and Sandia, NM), Department of Defense Laboratories including the Army Research Laboratory and Naval Research Laboratory, and several academic institutions. Starting in 2016, the DCS will be available to national/international scientific users.

SOURCE: Logos Technologies; http://www.logos-technologies.com/news/08-04-2014.html

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.