Optical warfare just took a big step toward reality with award of Navy CESARS contracts | Laser Focus World

We've been talking about the notion of optical warfare now for nearly 20 years, yet while most topics on optical warfare largely have been theoretical, a couple of new photonics-based programs are making this emerging discipline a lot more real.

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Optically Pumped Semiconductor Laser Advantages: Wavelength Flexibility

Optically Pumped Semiconductor Laser Advantages: Wavelength Flexibility

Learn more about the unique wavelength scaling advantage of Optically Pumped Semiconductor Laser technology that is a major reason behind the widespread use of OPSLs in life sciences, light shows, and beyond.

Military aircraft, missile tracking systems, and ground troops who rely on night-vision systems could benefit from a new generation of infrared imaging devices made with a powerful semiconducting material developed by University of Arkansas researchers and their colleagues at several institutions.

DoD awards University of Arkansas $7.5M to advance infrared detectors

The $7.5 million dollar award from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is part of its Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, or MURI.

These sensors from the SmartSens/MEMS Drive partnership will feature added stabilization control to the rotation of the sensor, achieving optimal stabilization with no less than 5 axes.

SmartSens partners with MEMS Drive on CMOS chip-based image stabilization

The companies will collaborate on research in the field of CMOS chip-level optical image stabilization (OIS) technologies for new application areas.

James C. Wyant with Maria Ruiz in 2014, a first-year graduate student at the College of Optical Sciences, who that year received a Louise Wyant Memorial Scholarship in Optical Sciences. James Wyant and his family are now contributing $2 million and SPIE $500,000 to an educational-funding initiative for optics and photonics.

With $500,000 grant to University of Arizona, SPIE launches $2.5 million endowment matching program

Gooch & Housego (G&H) is partnering with Optex Systems to provide acrylic sighting instruments to the European market. Shown here are some Optex sighting systems.

Gooch & Housego partners with Optex to supply acrylic optics

The partnership combines Optex acrylic periscope products with G&H’s next-generation glass periscope hardware portfolio.

Tracks of heavy ions 'imprinted' in lithium fluoride crystals. At the top, spot tracks observed under a fluorescence microscope in plates perpendicular to the heavy ion beam. At the bottom, the ion tracks in the parallel oriented plate (the blurring at both ends of the trace is an artifact of the depth of focus of the microscope). False colors.

Lithium fluoride fluorescent crystals track high-energy heavy ions such as iron

In comparison to previous crystals such as aluminum oxide, LiF crystals also require a less expensive microscope for analysis.

A fast, low-cost, highly sensitive diffuse optical imaging system acquires optical transmission images dorsally to provide objective, quantitative analysis for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis and monitoring.

Spectroscopy/Optical Imaging: Fourier-transform analysis helps optical method improve RA detection

A noninvasive near-infrared diffuse optical imaging (DOI) system combines 3D digital imaging and infrared (IR) spectroscopy to map blood content in a patient’s hand for detection of rheumatoid arthritis.

FIGURE 1. The tip of a 30,000-core optical fiber bundle is shown next to an Australian 5 cent coin for scale (left) and a zoomed-in image (right) reveals a small region of the fiber bundle facet (dashed red box in left). Each core is roughly 2 µm in diameter and separated from its neighbors by an average of 3.3 µm.

Fiber-optic Components: Fiber-optic bundles provide 3D stereo imaging

With each fiber acting as an independent pixel, coherent fiber bundles transmit more information than just a 2D representation of an image; specifically, the spatial light field faithfully encodes 3D stereo data.

FIGURE 1. The mode of operation of a DCFC for extraction of fluorescence emission is shown.

Optical Coherence Tomography/Fluorescence Imaging: Fiber assembly enables efficient multimodal endoscopy

Double-clad fiber couplers (DCFCs) enable seamless and efficient combinations of modalities for robust fiber-based imaging and other biomedical applications.

Andor EMCCD cameras help detect source of laser beam attacks on aircraft

In an MIT Lincoln Labs project, potentially blinding laser beams are triangulated by their scattered light and pinpointed using Google Earth.

Copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cells are shown mounted on roofs. A new thin-film material, palladium diselenide, could lead to high-performance photovoltaics for satellites and other spacecraft.

Palladium diselenide could be next high-efficiency photovoltaic material for spacecraft use

Single- and double-layered versions of 2D palladium diselenide have a wide spectrum of energy absorption.

An artist's concept shows a rover on Mars

Jenoptik lenses will reveal the first images from NASA’s Mars 2020 mission

The Jenoptik Light & Optics team has been developing three types of mission critical lenses for the Mars Rover’s engineering cameras.

KBaTeBiO6 (left) is a promising nontoxic perovskite for use in photovoltaics. At right is a scanning transmission electron micrograph showing the atomic structure of KBaTeBiO6, along with a snapshot of the synthesized powder.

Found via data analytics, a nontoxic perovskite shows promise for use in photovoltaics

Quantum-mechanical calculations uncovered 30,000 possible bismuth-based oxide perovskites; the best was chosen and synthesized.

Doughnut-shaped intensity point spread functions (IPSFs) are compared before (a) and after (c) application of a machine-learning-based adaptive-optic (AO) correction; the IPSF profiles (b, d) along lines I and II are also charted before (blue) and after (magenta) correction.

Machine-learning-based adaptive optics maintain doughnut-shaped beams in scattering media

Using a large number of optical elements and machine learning algorithms, researchers can maintain the focus of doughnut-shaped beams in scattering media - a critical need for applications in super-resolution microscopic imaging and particle trapping.