Laser weapon systems are special types of weapons that have significant military applications. These weapon systems are also called directed energy systems. The laser weapon systems can damage or destroy particular targets by using concentrated laser power. Now, many countries, including the United States of America are developing laser weapon systems and integrating them on the battlefield. Laser weapon systems are also cheaper, per-shot, than traditional weapons. These systems are also considered high-power systems as they can fire limitlessly. Even though there are various advantages of laser weapon systems, their effectiveness can be reduced under harsh weather conditions such as haze and mist.
Laser Weapon Systems and Their Challenges
Several years of research have fostered a significant advancement of laser weapon systems. However, these weapon systems still face various obstacles to their widespread adoption. Some of the issues that a laser weapon system faces are- i) keeping the laser system stable for a long period of time, ii) maintaining the narrow bandwidth and precision of the laser systems, and iii) guaranteeing good laser damage thresholds of the optics.
A laser weapon system applies high power density on a specific target by combining multiple laser sources coherently so that the be produced has minimum beam divergence and maximum efficiency. Because of the challenge in combining, it is very difficult to attain high laser power. However, many of these issues can be eliminated by using diffractive optical elements or DOEs.
Diffractive Optics in Laser Weapon Systems
Diffractive optical elements are optical elements that utilizes diffractive optics principles. These optical elements have significant applications in beam shaping. They can convert an incident laser beam into a well-shaped output beam so that the beam displays a uniform intensity profile with sharp edges, or correct the beam deviation or divergence. Diffractive optical elements benefit laser weapon systems in various ways-
- Diffractive optical elements have no tolerance, thus near absolute angular accuracy for splitting angles or deflection angles. This allows them to correct very small deviations in angles that can ruin the beam combining efficiency.
- DOE’s uniform intensity shaping is useful for laser weapon systems to reduce clipping losses when collimating an array of fiber sub-beams.
- The High LDT, low thickness, and lightweight of DOEs make them easy to integrate into laser weapon systems.
These above-mentioned advantages of diffractive optical elements make these optical elements useful for various laser applications, including defense and aerospace.
Conclusion
Laser weapon systems involve diffractive optical elements to effectively combine coherent laser beams and produce concentrated laser power. Some major types of DOEs are beam shaper DOEs, beam splitter DOEs, and beam foci DOEs. Diffractive optical elements extreme accuracy enables laser systems to reach high laser combining efficiency. These optical elements can withstand high laser power and generate power distribution that allow efficient coherent combining of numerous incident laser beams. Therefore, diffractive optical elements have a major contribution to laser weapon systems efficiency.
