A few decades ago, during my student days, the joke was that photonics was “the field of the future…and would always remain just that”.
Ultra-high-power lasers with powers of over 100kW? They would solve lots of problems, everyone knew, but…they were a thing of the future.
Well, here we are in the future!
Applications involving laser powers of even up to 150kW are now becoming – well, maybe not yet commonplace, but almost normal. Military applications of such lasers, once (not so long ago) purely science fiction, and even industrial applications are now very real and drawing great interest.
Of course, as with any highly advanced technology, such systems demand incredibly tight control of the laser’s behavior in order to do what they’re supposed to do, whether the application involves high-power fiber laser development and testing, directed energy systems development, or applications for such ultra-high powers that we haven’t even thought of yet.
And that’s where Ophir’s new 150K-W ultra-high power laser sensor comes in.
It’s a water-cooled calorimetric sensor that accurately measures powers from 10kW up to 150kW, calibrated over the spectral range 900-100nm.
It consists of two components: a compact 50cm x 50cm cylindrical “beam dump”, which absorbs the high-power laser beam and dissipates the heat, and a unit to measure the power. The measurement unit is equipped with an RS232 interface, as well as a “Smart Connector” interface that operates with all standard Ophir meters and virtual meters.
The back reflection is extremely low – less than 0.5% – which ensures operational safety (not a small thing when we’re talking about 150kW!).
The future is definitely here!
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