Recent advances in ultra-high-power lasers, including the free-electron laser, and impressive airborne demonstrations of laser weapons systems, such as the airborne laser, have shown the enormous potential of laser technology to revolutionize 21 st century warfare.
Military Laser Technology for Defense, includes only unclassified or declassified information. The book focuses on military applications that involve propagation of light through the atmosphere and provides basic relevant background technology. It describ es high-power lasers and masers, including the free-electron laser. Further, Military Laser Technology for Defense addresses how laser technology can effectively mitigate six of the most pressing military threats of the 21st century: attack by missiles, terrorists, chemical and biological weapons, as well as difficulty in imaging in bad weather and threats from directed beam weapons and future nuclear weapons. The author believes that laser technology will revolutionize warfare in the 21st century.
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Geometric or ray optics [16] is used to describe the path of light in free space in which propagation distance is much greater than the wavelength of the light—normally microns (see Section 1.2.3 for more exact conditions). Note that we cannot apply ray theory if the media properties vary noticeably in distances comparable to wavelength; for such cases, we use more computationally demanding finite approximation techniques such as finite-difference time domain (FDTD) [154] or finite elements [78, 79]. Ray theory postulates rays that are at right angles to wave fronts of constant phase. Such rays describe the path along which light emanates from a source and the rays track the Poynting vector of power in the wave. Geometric or ray optics provides insight into the distribution of energy in space with time. The spread of neighboring rays with time enables computation of attenuation, which provides information analogous to that provided by diffraction equations but with less computation. Ray optics is extensively used for the passage of light through optical elements, such as lenses, and inhomogeneous media for which refractive index (or dielectric constant) varies with position in space.
In Section 1.1, we derive the paraxial equation that reduces dimensionality when light stays close to the axis. In Section 1.2, we study geometric or ray optics: Fermat's principle, limits of ray theory, the ray equation, rays through quadratic media, and matrix representations. In Section 1.3, we consider thin lens optics for launching and/or receiving beams: magnification, beam expanders, beam compressors, telescopes, microscopes, and spatial filters.
1.1 Paraxial Optics
In 1840, Gauss proposed the paraxial approximation for propagation of beams that stay close to the axis of an optical system. In this case, propagation is, say, in the z direction and the light varies in transverse x and y directions over only a small distance relative to the distance associated with the radius of curvature of a spherically curved surface in x and y (Figure 1.1). The region of the spherical surface near the axis can be approximated by a parabola. The spherical surface of curvature R is
(1.1)
Using the binomial theorem to eliminate the square root,
(1.2)
which is the equation for a parabola.
Figure 1.1 Illustrates the paraxial approximation.
1.2 Geometric or ray optics
1.2.1 Fermat's Principle
In 1658, Fermat introduced one of the first variational principles in physics, the basic principle that governs geometrical optics [16]: A ray of light will travel between points
and
by the shortest optical path
; no other path will have a shorter optical path length. The optical path length is the equivalent path length in a...
Table of contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Part I: Optics Technology for Defense Systems
Part II: Laser Technology for Defense Systems
Part III: Applications to Protect Against Military Threats
