FORWARD PHOTONICS LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: SOCOM173-001

Description

There exists a challenge in observing laser designated targets in full daylight conditions for currently fielded near-infrared (NIR) laser designators. The visibility difficulty arises primarily from the significant background signal produced by the sun, which closely mimics the spectral signature of a blackbody . By extending the wavelength region in which laser designators/markers operate into the MWIR, the daytime visibility can be significantly improved. Forward Photonics proposes to build a multi-band NIR/MWIR laser designator to address this need. Our technical solution is based on our revolutionary MWIR lasers based on Wavelength Beam Combination of Quantum Cascade Lasers. Forward Photonics has produced the highest power, nearly diffraction limited QCL lasers with over 25 W of continuous wave (CW) power in the MWIR . Forward Photonics in the near future will be expand its record MWIR QCL power to 50 W. These laser modules have a single polarization and thus can be combined easily to double the power, for a total of 100 W MWIR power. These power and brightness levels are 10x to 100x higher than the state-of-the-art.