Full Day Course
- Introduction to Laser Beam Quality Measures Course cancelled
Afternoon Courses
- Windows and Coatings for HEL Systems
- Semiconductor Diode Lasers
- LEEDR and Atmospheric Effects
Course 1. Introduction to Laser Beam Quality Measures
This course has been cancelled.
Classification: Unclassified, Public Release
Instructor: Sean Ross, AFRL/DE
Duration:Full-day course, runs 0800-1700
CEUs awarded: 0.70
Course Description: This full-day short course covers the general subject of high power laser beam quality.
Topics covered include: definitions and applications of common measures of beam quality including Brightness,
Power-in-the-bucket, M-squared, 'times diffraction limited', strehl ratio, beam parameter product etc.
Special emphasis will be given to choosing an appropriate beam quality metric, tracing the metric to the application
of the laser system and to various conceptual pitfalls which arise in this field. Material presented will come from
general scientific literature as well as original work done by Dr. Ross and Dr. Pete Latham, both from the Air Force
Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate.
Intended Audience: This course should benefit anyone with an interest in laser beam quality,
including program managers, scientists, engineers, and military personnel who are not experts in the field.
Instructor Biography: Dr. Sean Ross has been with the Air Force Research Laboratory, Directed Energy Directorate,
High Power Solid State Laser Branch since he received his PhD from the Center for Research and Education in Optics and
Lasers (CREOL) in 1998. Research interests include nonlinear frequency conversion, high power solid state lasers, thermal
management and laser beam quality. Beginning in 2000, frustration with commercial beam quality devices led to the work
eventually presented in the Journal of Directed Energy, Vol. 2 No. 1 Summer 2006 "Appropriate Measures and Consistent
Standard for High Energy Laser Beam Quality". This paper and its conference version (presented at the 2005 DEPS Symposium)
have received awards from the Directed Energy Professional Society and the Directed Energy Directorate.
Course 2. Windows and Coatings for HEL Systems
Classification: Unclassified, Public Release
Instructor: Bill Decker, Defense Acquisition University
Duration: Half-day course, starts at 1300
CEUs awarded: 0.35
Course Description: The student will understand the possible alternatives for Windows and Coatings for HEL
Systems and sources to obtain the optical materials and coating services. Topics include:
- Windows - issues and solutions
- How HEL windows applications are different
- The options for materials for tranmissive optics
- Optical polishing technology - current state of the art
- Coatings
- Why coatings are still a problem
- Sources for coating services
Intended Audience: This course will benefit those working in the high energy laser community, with a general background in
optics. Technical and managerial people will benefit from the course.
Instructor Biography: William M. Decker is a Professor of Engineering Management at Defense Acquisition University. He
also is a consultant to Heraeus Quartz America, a manufacturer of fused quartz and fused silica. Mr.
Decker served 20 years in the U.S. Army, followed by 15 years in the optics industry prior to joining
DAU. He currently serves on the DEPS Board of Directors as the Secretary. Mr. Decker's 35 years'
experience in optics and lasers provides the foundation for this short course.
Course 3. Semiconductor Diode Lasers
Classification: Unclassified, Public Release
Instructor: Steve Patterson, DILAS
Duration:Half-day course, starts at 1300
CEUs awarded: 0.35
Course Description: This half-day course will cover all aspects of diode lasers, beginning with the fundamentals
of laser operation, and then progressing to semiconductor lasers specifically. The supporting physics will be
developed with an eye toward physical intuition. Methods of crystal growth and device fabrication will then be
discussed with emphasis of these processes on the performance of the diode laser. Characterization of the diode
laser will review the more common device performance parameters such power, voltage, efficiency and near and far
field behavior of the laser. With this background completed, the emphasis will turn to those topics of most interest
to the directed energy community. High power, high brightness fiber-coupled modules, reliability and wavelength
stabilization will receive most of the attention and discussion. Throughout, the course will be modified in real
time as possible to address student interest and understanding. Topics include:
- Overview: Introduction to lasers, history and overview of diode lasers
- Theory: Basic semiconductor physics, optoelectronic device physics, rate equation analysis, and a brief design example
- Characterization: Input/output characteristics, efficiency and derivative analysis, extracting internal parameters
- Fabrication: Epitaxial design and growth, chip design and front-end processing, heatsink design and back-end processing
- Other Topics: High brightness fiber-coupled packages, failure modes, catastrophic optical damage, passivation approaches, and reliability; wavelength stabilization; high brightness; VCSELs and VECSELs.
Intended Audience: Any person with interest will benefit from the course but the material will be most
easily assimilated by a person with a technical background or undergraduate engineering degree. Prior experience
with diode lasers should also prove helpful. Anyone wishing to understand the design, fabrication, operation and
application of diode lasers, especially as they apply to fundamental and practical limits of diode laser technology,
will benefit.
Instructor Biographies: Dr. Steve Patterson spent nine years active duty service as a United Sates Army Ranger
with service in the 1st Ranger Bn., afterwhich he attended graduate school at MIT, earning a PhD in Electrical Engineering.
Steve's first professional position was with Agilent Technologies as a laser device research engineer, where he worked on
high data rate VCSEL arrays. Subsequently, he held a variety of positions with companies to include Boeing Spectrolab
and nLight Photonics where he conducted research on high power diode lasers, in both the GaAs and InP materials systems,
with application to directed energy, IRCM, solid state laser pumping and high-brightness fiber coupled modules.
Since 2010 Steve has been with Dilas Diode Laser, Inc. where he is the North American Vice President and general manager.
There, Steve continues development of diode lasers and high-brightness, low-weight fiber coupled modules for directed
energy and manages DILAS’ North American and defense operations.
Course 4. LEEDR and Atmospheric Effects
Classification: Unclassified, Limited Distribution C
Instructor: Jared Burley, Jaclyn Schmidt; Air Force Institute of Technology
Duration: Half-day course, starts at 1300
CEUs awarded: 0.35
Course Description: This course addresses how to characterize and quantify the major effects
of the atmosphere on directed energy weapons propagation. A first principles atmospheric propagation and
characterization code called the Laser Environmental Effects Definition and Reference (LEEDR) is described
and demonstrated. LEEDR enables the creation of climatologically- or numerical weather prediction (NWP)-derived
vertical profiles of temperature, pressure, water vapor content, optical turbulence, and atmospheric particulates
and hydrometeors as they relate to line-by-line or band-averaged layer extinction coefficient magnitude at any
wavelength from 350 nm to 8.6 m. Additionally, LEEDR provides overland cloud-free-line of sight (CFLOS) assessments
and access to and export of the Extreme and Percentile Environmental Reference Tables (ExPERT) database data.
The course outline is as follows:
- Goals of LEEDR & Atmospheric Effects Characterization
- LEEDR Atmospheric Data
- Example LEEDR Profile Plots, Products, and Menu Lists
- Installing LEEDR
- Running LEEDR
- References & Acronyms
- Memo of Agreement
Students are encouraged to attend with a Windows OS PC, for which they have administrative rights, so that they may
install the LEEDR software and follow along with the demonstrations.
Intended Audience:US Government personnel and their direct contractors who have program requirements for
or are interested in methods and tools to assess realistic environments and environmental effects for modeling and
simulation, mission planning, and/or military systems operations. The course assumes the students have some technical
background in radiative transfer through the atmosphere--either via an undergraduate degree or career experience.
Instructors Biographies: Major Jarred L. Burley received his BS degree in physics from the United States
Air Force Academy (2006) and a MS in applied physics from the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT, 2012).
He is currently a nuclear engineering PhD candidate at AFIT working with the Center for Directed Energy researching
atmospheric effects on nuclear detonation detection. He has over 6 years of experience supporting directed energy
effects testing, MASINT, remote sensing, and atmospheric modeling with previous assignments at the Air Force Research
Labs and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center. His research interests include high energy laser effects testing,
remote sensing modeling and simulation, and atmospheric nuclear effects on military systems.
Jaclyn E. Schmidt has four years of experience supporting the intelligence and remote sensing communities by
providing atmospheric support for modeling and simulation tools such as the Laser Environmental Effects Definition
and Reference tool (LEEDR) and bathymetric analysis for the Naval Oceanographic Office. She received her BS
degree in meteorology from the University of South Alabama in 2010. Ms. Schmidt also has nearly two years of
experience working in an atmospheric science related field and two years in the oceanographic science related field.
As the LEEDR point of contact, she supports the Center for Directed Energy (CDE)-AFIT mission in directed energy,
laser intelligence, and remote sensing through atmospheric effects and modeling research. Her research interests
include atmospheric effects applications to earth and environmental remote sensing as they relate to the intelligence community.
| Course Fees |
|
| |
Half-Day
|
Full-Day
|
| Full-time students |
$0
|
$0
|
| Others (live) |
$250
|
$450
|
Registration
To register for a short course separate from the AHPL/Beam Control Conference, select one of the following options.
If you plan to also register for the AHPL/BC, you may use the AHPL
registration form instead.
- Complete this form to register on-line.
Note that on-line registration does not require on-line payment.
Some organizations have installed web filters that prevent on-line registration
from inside their facilities. If this appears to be true for you, please try again off-site
or use the registration option below.
- Print this registration form (in PDF format) and
follow the instructions provided.
Persons requesting cancellation through 30 May will receive a full refund. Cancellations after 30 May
are subject to a $100 cancellation fee. There will be no refunds after 24 June.
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