Search
Menu
Rocky Mountain Instruments - Infrared Optics LB

Parabolic Mirrors Power Solar Lasers

Facebook X LinkedIn Email
COLLEGE PARK, Md., Sept. 16, 2011 — Borrowing from modern telescope design, researchers have proposed a way to concentrate sunlight to boost laser efficiency. Researchers at the Scientific and Production Association in Uzbekistan said the new laser would convert 35 percent of the sun’s energy into a laser light, providing a considerable increase in the maximum power produced by current-day solar-pumped lasers, which typically achieve only 1 to 2 percent efficiency.

The new solar lasers would concentrate light with a small parabolic mirror 1 m in diameter that has a focal spot approximately 2 to 3 cm in diameter. The concentrated light would then strike a two-layer ceramic disk known as a neodymium and chromium co-doped YAG laser material.

One side of the disk would have a highly reflective coating; the other side would be antireflecting. When sunlight penetrates through the ceramic material, it excites the electrons in the material, causing them to emit laser light of a specific wavelength (1.06 µm). To control the searing heat produced by the concentrated sunlight, the ceramic disk would be mounted atop a heat sink through which water would be pumped.

The laser light would then travel to a prime focus and be reflected back to the ceramic surface before exiting the solar collector at an oblique angle. It’s this double pass that produces the gain in efficiency, enabling a greater fraction of sunlight to be converted into laser light.

Potentially, parabolic reflector lasers could be harnessed for the large-scale synthesis of nanoparticles and nanostructures, they said.

The study was published in AIP’s Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.

For more information, visit: www.aip.org
Hamamatsu Corp. - Earth Innovations MR 2/24

Published: September 2011
Glossary
nano
An SI prefix meaning one billionth (10-9). Nano can also be used to indicate the study of atoms, molecules and other structures and particles on the nanometer scale. Nano-optics (also referred to as nanophotonics), for example, is the study of how light and light-matter interactions behave on the nanometer scale. See nanophotonics.
ceramic laserenergygreen photonicsLight SourcesMiddle Eastnanonanoparticlesneodymium and chromium co-doped YAG laser materialparabolic mirrorsResearch & TechnologyScientific and Production Associationsolar collectorsolar laserssolar-pumped lasersUzbekistanLasers

We use cookies to improve user experience and analyze our website traffic as stated in our Privacy Policy. By using this website, you agree to the use of cookies unless you have disabled them.