Seed-Derived Second Harmonic Source for In-Situ Alignment and Calibration of Trace Gas Measurement Instruments, Phase I

Several NASA applications include the use of a frequency doubling module to generate fixed or tunable radiation from the visible to near IR. The primary beneficiary of the proposed module is NASA's GSFC team working on O2 sensing for ASCENDS and other missions. Poled materials offer a wider array of functionality including robust, multi-element platforms for combining tasks like frequency conversion and modulation without adding insertion loss due to additional components. Remote sensing missions like ACE that require such platforms will also benefit. Atom-based inertial sensing and free space communications are other exciting new technologies that could benefit from highly efficient frequency conversion devices in this wavelength range. Nonlinear poled materials play an increasingly important role in photonics applications that may be in non-standard wavelength regions, some of which include microwave photonics, up conversion, infrared detection, IR generation, and bio-photonics. In addition to its use with NASA's nonlinear optical material based photonic applications, the technology will be of use for military applications, sensing and environmental monitoring, and basic research. Additional markets that can utilize compact, rugged, highly efficient, wavelength conversion modules are free space telecommunications, remote sensing, precision spectroscopy, interferometry and frequency metrology. More »