VOXTEL, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A16-083

Description

To protect daytime cameras against broadband laser threats, innovative active optical materials and optical systems—designed to provide protection against pulsed lasers operating throughout the wavelength range of common daytime and low-light-level imaging cameras (400 nm through 1100 nm)—are being developed by Voxtel, Inc. The nonlinear optical (NLO) limiter developed in this work delivers undistorted viewing under normal conditions, while protecting vision-system cameras from being significantly damaged by pulsed lasers with wavelengths across the visible spectrum. A novel NLO-limiting tightly coupled nanocomposite hybrid—with broadband, visible spectrum protection and an instantaneous, self-activated response—has been created, and will be optimized and implemented in an example optic system. The NLO properties of the nanocomposite developed were characterized and shown to achieve significant progress across the visible and near-infrared spectra, toward a target nonlinear index of n_2 > 1 x 10^-9 cm^2/W (X^(3) > 1 x 10^-6 esu) and a damage threshold of > 400 MW/cm^2.