Page 21 - High Power Laser Handbook

xx Fo r e w o r d

tool of choice for measuring direction and distance, while the laser
level provides a low-cost, elegant way to level a ceiling.
Lasers affect our lives in everything from medicine to entertain-
ment to communications. More than one billion scans per day are made
at checkout counters around the world on laser scanners. Lasers also
connect us through fiber optic communications, which is the backbone
of the modern world, far exceeding the optimistic projections for speed
and bandwidth of a decade ago. We now demand video links and
download movies online rather than through packaged delivery.
Today’s lasers are efficient and do real work. More than 20 different
lasers are used to manufacture an automobile. Every cell phone, laptop
computer, and television is manufactured using precise laser light to
drill, melt, or correct a link in a miniature circuit or television screen.
The dream that someday the laser would be a precise weapon for
defense applications is now becoming reality. Video demonstrations of
laser beams illuminating and destroying missiles, mortar rounds, and
artillery rounds in flight are now available on YouTube for all to wit-
ness. The year 2009 saw a step toward efficient, compact lasers for
weapons with the demonstration of a 20 percent efficient, diode-
pumped solid-state laser at greater than 100 kW average output power.
How did we progress from 2 mW diode-pumped laser power in 1984 to
greater than 100 kW power today? The chapters in this book discuss this
progress in advanced solid-state lasers and help lead to an understand-
ing of the key breakthroughs in laser technology that have enabled a
factor of one million increase in laser power in just a quarter century.
The year 2009 saw the commissioning of the world’s largest
laser—the National Ignition Facility’s megajoule-class laser—for
laser fusion studies. This laser was designed to study all aspects of
laser fusion using the unique properties of lasers to deliver greater
than 1 MJ of ultraviolet light to a target in less than 3 ns. The prelimi-
nary experiments have been published and are very promising. The
goal is to achieve a fusion burn in the laboratory as a step toward a
detailed understanding of matter compressed to a density and tem-
perature, which, in turn, will allow an efficient fusion burn. The next
step is to design and engineer a laser that can drive the fusion process
at 10 Hz rate for application to fusion energy.
The past 50 years have seen remarkable progress in laser techno-
logy. This book captures elements of that progress from experts who
have participated in and contributed to laser technology. An under-
standing of the first 50 years of laser technology and its applications
may offer a glimpse into the next 50 years. Of course, it is difficult to
make predictions about the future. My guess is that we will grossly
underestimate the progress in laser technology and the breadth of
applications laser technology will enable.

Robert L. Byer