FY 2005 Quantum Cascade Laser Alignment System Final Report

The Alignment Lasers Task of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's (PNNL's) Remote Spectroscopy Project (Project PL211I) is a co-funded project between DOE NA-22 and a Classified Client. This project, which began in the second half of FY03, involved building and delivering a Quantum Cascade (QC) Laser Alignment System to be used for testing the pupil alignment of an infrared sensor by measuring the response from four pairs of diametrically opposed QC lasers. PNNL delivered the system in FY04 and provided technical assistance in FY05 culminating into a successful demonstration of the system. This project evolved from the Laser Development Task of PL211I, which is involved in developing novel laser technology to support development of advanced chemical sensors for detecting the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The laser systems are based on quantum cascade (QC) lasers, a new semiconductor source in the infrared. QC lasers can be tailored to emit light throughout the infrared region (3.5 ? 17 ?m) and have high output power and stability. Thus, these lasers provide an infrared source with superb power and spectral stability enabling them to be used for applications such as alignment and calibration in addition to chemical sensing