NASA’s Technology Transfer Program solicits inquiries from companies interested in obtaining license rights to commercialize, manufacture and market the following technology. License rights may be issued on an exclusive or nonexclusive basis and may include specific fields of use. NASA provides no funding in conjunction with these potential licenses.

THE TECHNOLOGY:

Innovators at the NASA Langley Research Center have developed a new technique for generating a continuous wave (CW) laser source with agile wavelength switching capabilities that is suitable for injection seeding high-energy pulsed lasers. Laser output radiation spectral linewidth control is an essential feature for scientific applications, such as atmospheric active remote sensing. Generally, high energy lasers do not readily produce spectrally narrow linewidth output. In order to achieve a high energy output radiation that matches the spectroscopic features of desired measurement objectives, this CW laser source was developed to injection seed and control the wavelength of a high energy laser. NASA's CW laser source can provide multiple wavelengths suitable for single and multi-pulsed lasers using a low-power radiation source. This results in a compact, lightweight, and low power consumption injection seeder that is suitable for airborne and space-borne applications including, but not limited to Lidar applications, atmospheric observation instruments, and optical signal generators.

NASA's CW Laser Source for Injection Seeding uses a single laser diode (LD) to produce multiple wavelengths. Depending on the application, the seed laser may or may not be locked to a wavelength reference. For example, in atmospheric differential absorption lidar (DIAL) active remote sensing applications, the seed laser has to be locked and referenced to the species of interest using gas cells. In this context, the seed laser source is first locked to an absorption feature and the generated wavelength is used as a reference from which other offset wavelengths are generated. However, if the requirement calls only to avoid atmospheric absorption then locking may not be required. Using this new technology, an airborne 2-micron triple pulse integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) LIDAR instrument has been developed at NASA Langley Research Center to measure the column content of atmospheric H2O and CO2 simultaneously and independently. This is achieved by transmitting three successive high-energy pulses, seeded at three different wavelengths, through the atmosphere. The three pulses are emitted 200 microseconds apart and repeated at 50 Hz. The seeding wavelengths were selected to achieve minimum measurement interference from one molecule to the other. Typically, this requires four different CW lasers for seeding. A part of that effort focused on adaptive targeting, which is based on the tuning capability of the on-line wavelength to meet a certain measurement objective depending on observational time and location. The off-line wavelength was assumed constant. The tuning capability can be achieved using the claimed seeding technique using a voltage-controlled oscillator for the on-line and fixed oscillator for the off-line.

To express interest in this opportunity, please submit a license application through NASA’s Automated Technology Licensing Application System (ATLAS) by visiting https://technology.nasa.gov/patent/LAR-TOPS-331

If you have any questions, please e-mail NASA’s Technology Transfer Program at [email protected] with the title of this Technology Transfer Opportunity as listed in this SAM.gov notice and your preferred contact information. For more information about licensing other NASA-developed technologies, please visit the NASA Technology Transfer Portal at https://technology.nasa.gov/

These responses are provided to members of NASA’s Technology Transfer Program for the purpose of promoting public awareness of NASA-developed technology products, and conducting preliminary market research to determine public interest in and potential for future licensing opportunities. No follow-on procurement is expected to result from responses to this Notice.