DARPA, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced the availability of funding for the development of highly efficient mid-wave infrared lasers. The new program, known as Efficient Mid-wave Infrared Lasers (EMIL), will drive the efficiency of such lasers more than an order of magnitude beyond the state of the art, with a goal of greater than 50 percent efficiency.
The program is outlined in a recently issued broad agency announcement (BAA 06-20) and accompanying proposer information pamphlet. To be considered for the initial round of funding, proposal abstracts are due by April 12; full proposals are due by June 21. Full details are available in the announcement and pamphlet (see below for website posting locations).
The specific technical goals of the EMIL program are to demonstrate a mid-wave infrared laser operating continuous wave at room-temperature with high-power (i.e., more than one watt), good beam quality, and operating at 50 percent efficiency. This would mean that a total of no more than two watts of electrical power is required to generate the one watt of laser output power.
Current mid-wave infrared lasers have wall-plug efficiencies that rarely exceed a few percent and poor operating characteristics at room temperature. In contrast, today
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