FREEDOM PHOTONICS LLC — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: S1

Description

Freedom Photonics proposes the development of watt-class diffraction-limited diode lasers with extremely high reliability for pumping solid state lasers.nbsp; Two target operating wavelengths will be pursued, 808 nm and 885 nm, in order to support the two common pump bands for Nd:YAG microchip lasers.nbsp; Diffraction-limited pump diodes enable close matching of the end-pumped gain region to the fundamental cavity mode of the solid state laser.nbsp; This approach improves the laser efficiency, power, beam quality, and reliability, all of which are critical for space-based LIDAR systems.nbsp; During the Phase 1 effort, Freedom Photonics will design, fabricate, and characterize prototype devices in order to demonstrate the feasibility of our laser technology for reaching Watt-level output power with highnbsp;electrical-to-optical efficiency and nearly diffraction-limited beam quality.nbsp; High reliability will be achieved through mitigation of catastrophic optical mirror damage by means of an advanced facet passivation technology.nbsp; Spectral narrowing and wavelength stabilization will allow for maximum pump absorption without the need for strict control of the diode junction temperature.