DARPA will make funding available under its Efficient Mid-wave Infrared Lasers program. The technical goals of the project are to demonstrate a mid-infrared laser operating in continuous-wave mode at room temperature with more than 1 W of power and good beam quality and at 50 percent efficiency.

The program is described in the Broad Agency Announcement, BAA 06-20, and the companion proposer information pamphlet. Organizations interested in proposing approaches can obtain the documents on the Federal Business Opportunities and Federal Grants Web sites, www.fbo.gov and www.grants.gov, respectively. Abstracts are due by April 12, and full proposals are due June 21.

Mid-IR lasers are used for military countermeasures and chemical and biological threat detection systems. Enhanced efficiency will result in improvements in the size, weight, performance and cost the systems.