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Fluid Transitions: Lockheed Martin

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Fiber lasers are the wave of the future at Lockheed Martin Aculight.

“We’re kind of known as the world leader in high-power fiber lasers,” said Rob Afzal, vice president for research and development.

Founded 14 years ago, the Bothwell, Wash.-based Aculight Corp. originally was focused on laser research and nonlinear optics, according to Afzal. The company grew to 85 people and, in the past four years, has become concentrated more on fiber laser technology – and on applications – than on pure research.

Global security company Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda, Md., acquired Aculight last summer. Aculight’s expertise in areas such as laser radar, countermeasures, high-power directed energy and medical products is espected to benefit Lockheed Martin’s national defense and aerospace customers in areas that include guided munitions, advanced sensors, airborne self-protection and warfighter security.

On the medical side, too, the company now known as Lockheed Martin Aculight has moved “from an R&D focus to an applications-driven focus,” according to Mark Bendett, head of medical products. Exciting work in that field includes technology for Wounded Warrior programs, prosthetic limbs, microsurgical lasers and even optical hearing implants.

Afzal was unable to talk much about the company’s research into IR countermeasures – if he told me, he’d have to kill me – but said that Aculight researchers recently achieved 70 W of green from a fiber-based system. “And it’s air-cooled because of the efficiency of the fiber system,” he noted. Applications include military uses – countermeasures – and solar energy.

The transition from Aculight Corp. to Lockheed Martin Aculight is completed, and both entities are stronger for it. “We now enable Lockheed Martin to be vertically integrated with laser systems,” Afzal said, “and they allow us to supply whole-system solutions to our customers.”

“For a very small group, we have a very big reach,”  Bendett said.


Laura S. Marshall

[email protected]


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Published: January 2009
Glossary
nonlinear optics
Nonlinear optics is a branch of optics that studies the optical phenomena that occur when intense light interacts with a material and induces nonlinear responses. In contrast to linear optics, where the response of a material is directly proportional to the intensity of the incident light, nonlinear optics involves optical effects that are not linearly dependent on the input light intensity. These nonlinear effects become significant at high light intensities, such as those produced by...
photonics
The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems. The range of applications of photonics extends from energy generation to detection to communications and...
aerospacedefenseenergyfiber lasersIndustry EventsLockheed Martin AculightMark Bendettmicrosurgical lasersNational Defensenonlinear opticsphotonicsprosthetic limbsRob AfzalSensors & DetectorsSolar Energywarfighter securityWounded WarriorLasers

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