"This is an important step in the maturation of fiber laser technology," said Dan Wildt, vice president of Directed Energy Systems for Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems sector. "By surpassing Phase I goals, we are in an excellent position for success in Phase II. Success in Phase II will create a powerful springboard for scaling fiber lasers to weapons-class performance levels."

With a 1 kilowatt (kW) single mode fiber amplifier, the company demonstrated a near-perfect beam quality of better than 1.2 and efficiency better than 30 percent, twice the program's goal of 15 percent.

Northrop Grumman also demonstrated a polarization extinction ratio of 50:1, and extremely low phase noise, which is essential for the coherent combination of laser chains used to scale power to weapons-class levels.

The Phase I success was a team effort involving Nufern, East Branby, Conn., which supplied high-power amplifiers; Fraunhofer USA, Inc., Plymouth, Mich., which supplied high-power diode laser pumps; and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., which supplied advanced fiber design and analysis.

The $4.6 million, 18-month Phase II DARPA contract calls for scaling power to 3kW in a single mode fiber amplifier. The company has patents on techniques used to facilitate combination of many fiber amplifier beams, while maintaining near-ideal beam quality. The ultimate goal is to develop the technology to 100kW, the power necessary to field a lethal laser weapon.

Northrop Grumman is also working on other laser initiatives that will build on the company's scalable architecture and beam combining expertise. They include:

+ The 2-Dimensional Diffractive Optical Element Beam Combining Demonstration, a U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory program under which the company is demonstrating diffractive beam combining using the Joint Department of Defense high-power fiber laser test bed, and

+ The Robust Electric Laser Initiative, a two-year, $8.7 million contract for a High Energy Laser - Joint Technology Office program to produce a design using the company's diffractive optical element beam combining technique to increase power levels to 25kW.

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