+ View all Success Stories

As part of its Laser Risk Reduction Program, Goddard has entered into an agreement (SAA) with AdvR, an applied photonics company based in Bozeman, Montana.

Technology Description

The program’s goal is to increase the stability, robustness, and lifetime of lasers used in long-term space missions, reducing mission risk. Injection seeding high-power lasers with a stable, single-frequency, low-power source can greatly improve the total laser system’s lifetime and improve the operational specifications (e.g., shot-to-shot stability, timing, frequency jitter). Such lasers exist commercially, but a flight-qualified version is very expensive, relatively inefficient, and massive for such a low-power device. Low-cost, efficient seed lasers are essential. AdvR develops and provides such seed lasers and other photonics technologies to its clients.

Technology Transfer/Partnership Success

Working cooperatively, Goddard researchers and AdvR personnel are working to build a flight-qualified semiconductor seed laser. Beginning with an AdvR unit, Goddard is performing improvements to the package design using finite element analysis and other research to enable the laser’s mechanical components to withstand flight conditions. Then AdvR will assemble the improved components and test the optical power, electrical and optical efficiency, beam and spectral profile, wavelength, and frequency stability output. After laboratory specifications are met and verified, the laser will be go through a standard flight qualification procedure, including vibration and thermal vacuum testing.

“If this project is successful,” said Goddard’s Barry Coyle (Code 690), “NASA will be able to obtain commercially available flight-qualified semiconductor seed lasers for about one-tenth the cost and less than one-twenty-fifth the volume, weight, and electrical budget of the present alternative.”

Several projects utilizing this technology are already underway, including seeded fiber amplifiers and high-precision imaging and surface mapping. Its original use as a single-frequency source for high-power, solid-state lasers is still being pursued for more and larger laser systems destined for field, aircraft, or space use.

Contact

Innovative Partnerships Program Office
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Phone: (301) 286-2642
E-mail: techtransfer@gsfc.nasa.gov

+ Contact AdvR (Link opens new browser window.)