Licensed Technology Increases Laser Use, ReliabilityNASA'S LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER IN Hampton, Virginia, has licensed a remote-sensing technology to a Montana company for the protection of commercial laser systems. This could result in significant potential savings for the customer and increased reliability of lasers in areas ranging from the medical industry to product fabrication and gas leak detection.The NASA agreement allows Big Sky Laser Technologies, Inc., of Bozeman, Montana, to offer customers a new level of protection against the potential problem of undesired prelasing. Optical components can be damaged and have significant downtime for repair when uncontrolled laser energy prematurely leaks from a laser cavity, sometimes caused by unexpected reflections from the target back into the device. The NASA laser protection circuit can detect such prelasing and terminate operation before damage to the laser occurs. The circuit can prevent the buildup of laser pulse energy to self-destructive levels. Big Sky Laser has already begun modifying an existing line of miniaturized lasers with the technology. The laser, called the CFR 800, is able to perform in real-world applications because it is compact and rugged and offers turnkey operation. "With laser heads up to 90 percent smaller and 75 percent lighter than scientific lasers, the CFR series allows users to take lasers where they could not go before," said Big Sky Laser President Ed Teppo. Applications of Langley's circuit protection technology and laser miniaturization can make lasers more adaptable for monitoring pollution and tracking their sources and for detecting methane and other hazardous gas leaks. The technology can be used in the offices of dermatologists, medical doctors and plastic surgeons, in factories for fabrication, marking and laser cleaning and in other applications not yet defined. The company's high-powered CFR 800 laser, one-eighth the size of comparable laser systems, has been marketed for a wide range of applications, including LIDAR, remote sensing, eye-safe illumination, ablation, laser marking and laser splitting of molecules for the observation of light emission (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy). The CFR 800 delivers 800 milliJoules energy per pulse at 1,064 nanometers, with a peak intensity millions of times brighter than a common light bulb. The MSU TechLink Center, a technology transfer and commercialization partnership between NASA and Montana State University, continues to facilitate and assist Big Sky Laser in the technology's commercial development and application into other company products. Big Sky Laser is a provider of laser damage testing services and an ISO 9001-certified developer of compact, rugged, commercial and developmental turnkey laser systems that have been used by NASA to track Space Shuttle and rocket launches. The company's laser systems are being used in medicine, ranging, imaging, artwork restoration, laser cleaning, remote sensing, environmental sciences, process control and spectroscopy. For more information, contact Sherry Sullivan at Langley Research
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