An optical sensor such as a laser range finder (LRF) or laser displacement meter (LDM) uses reflected and returned laser beam from a target. The optical sensor has been mainly used to measure the distance between a launch position and the target. However, optical sensor based LRF and LDM have numerous and various errors such as statistical errors, drift errors, cyclic errors, alignment errors a...

This research developed new methods for high-performance control of laser beams in high energy laser weapons and laser communications. These methods achieve optical wavefront correction, laser beam pointing and target tracking with precision levels significantly beyond those achievable by existing methods for beam control, thereby increasing the bandwidths and target distances for which beam co...

BACKGROUND Ion beam has been used in cancer treatment, and has a unique preferable feature to deposit its main energy inside a human body so that cancer cell could be killed by the ion beam. However, conventional ion accelerator tends to be huge in its size and its cost. In this paper a future intense-laser ion accelerator is proposed to make the ion accelerator compact. SUBJECTS AND METHODS ...

Electrical activation and redistribution of 500 eV boron implants in preamorphized silicon after nonmelt laser annealing at 1150 °C and isochronal rapid thermal postannealing are reported. Under the thermal conditions used for a nonmelt laser at 1150 °C, a substantial residue of end-of-range defects remained after one laser scan but these were mainly dissolved within ten scans. The authors find...

The mean lifetime w of the 4p' 'F7/2 level of Ar II has been measured using a variant of the collinear laser-beam —fast-ion-beam spectroscopy technique. Our variant requires no mechanical motion or laser frequency tuning. The result is ~=8.414+0.025 ns in agreement with an earlier, comparably precise, measurement based on a crossed laser —ion-beam technique. The result lies above all theoretica...

Laser beam welding is becoming widely used in many industrial applications. This paper reviews recent research conducted on the performance, potential and problems of thick section butt joint laser welding. Common defects that occur in laser beam welding with high power laser welding are discussed and possible solutions proposed. Methods of welding process efficiency improvement are analyzed.

Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology had developed the SHADOW welding technique, in which high speed joining with minimal distortion is possible using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser. The possibility of high speed, high quality welding had been also reported by use of a single-mode fiber laser. The combination of micro-beam and high speed laser scanning offers potential advantages for thin metal she...

Laser-based missile-defence systems are being increasingly employed on aircraft to provide protection when attacked by optically-guided weapons. In some engagements the laser beam must pass through the exhaust gases of the aircraft. To predict the increase in laser beam divergence and jitter of the laser beam direction, an understanding of the exhaust gas structure and its influence is required...