Kansas State University develops new laser to measure farther distances

A new type of laser has been developed by a team including Kansas State University’s physics researchers. The laser can help scientists measure the distance between distant targets and determine the presence in the atmosphere. Some gases and images sent back from space back to earth. These energy-efficient lasers are portable, can produce light at wavelengths that are difficult to reach, and have the potential to scale to high power.

Kristan Corwin (left) and Brian Washburn (right), two associate professors of physics at Kansas State University, invented a new class of patented lasers.

This new laser was invented by Brian Washburn and Kristan Corwin, both associate professors of physics at the Kansas State University's School of Arts and Sciences, and Andrew Jones, a Ph.D. graduate student in physics in May 2012, and a physicist who graduated in May 2014. Graduate Rajeshada. Other contributors include three New Mexico University physics and astronomy researchers: Tenured Professor and Dean Wolfgang Rudolf, Research Assistant Professor Vasudevan Nampoothiri and PhD student Amarin Ratanavis; John Zavada, Ph.D., an optics and photonics physicist from Virginia, contacted them. Together.

The new laser is fiber-based and utilizes a variety of molecular gases to generate the laser. They are different from the traditional large and bulky glass tube lasers with mirrors to reflect light. The new lasers use a hollow core fiber with a honeycomb structure to store gas and conduct light. This fiber is filled with molecular gases such as hydrogen cyanide or acetylene. Another laser is used to excite these gases so that one of the excited gases emits spontaneously. The other molecules in the gas then quickly glow behind, creating a laser.

"By concentrating the gas inside the hollow core, we can get very high light levels without having to inject large amounts of energy into the laser," said Corwin. "If you have a glass tube of the same size and inject light into it, the light will leak from the side. It is actually the structure that makes it work."

The structure is also portable. Compared to conventional lasers that are fragile and bulky and difficult to move, these researchers have invented fiber lasers that are more durable, have a thickness of only one hair filament, and can be wound up for compact storage and shipping.

"Small is good," Washburn said. "You can roll up the fiber like a rope."

The inventive process began with Zaavada bringing together Washburn and Corwin with the technology to pack gases into hollow fibers and Rudolph and Nampoothiri, specializing in the manufacture of optically pumped gas lasers.

These inventor's lasers use gas, which is a popular method before manufacturers transfer to solid materials. For example, until the mid-1990s, grocery scanners were gas lasers, and grocery scanners are now using solid-state lasers.

"What we've done is use old technology in a new packaging approach," Washburn said.

With funding from the Air Force Scientific Research Division and research laboratories, these researchers are using the fiber provided by Fetah Benabid of the Limges Institute in Limoges, France, to continue researching and improving the laser.

U.S. Patent No. 9106055, entitled "Inflatable Hollow Fiber" was authorized in 2015 by the Kansas State University Research Foundation - a non-profit organization responsible for managing technology transfer at Kansas State University, and the University of New Mexico Technology Transfer It is jointly owned by the Economic Development Organization STC.UNM and Zavada.

(Original title: The new portable air-core fiber laser measures the distance between distant targets)