Laser System Developed in Samara Can Help to Fight Asteroids

Samara National Research University scientists together with its Russian and foreign colleagues  developed and tested the first (in Russia) experimental laser system of a new type with the possibility of scaling to megawatt powers. which makes it possible to create compact megawatt power lasers. In the future on the basis of such laser systems it will be possible to create global anti-asteroid protection systems, as well as compact and powerful sources of coherent radiation for industrial applications.

Nowadays the world is actively searching for new principles to build powerful and compact lasers. An optically pumped laser with metastable inert gas atoms was created by scientists of Samara University in cooperation with colleagues from Samara branch of P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (LPI RAS) and Emory University (Emory University, USA) as part of "Structure and Dynamics of Quantum Systems" university research laboratory under the supervision of American Professor Michael Heaven.

The experimental work on a new laser began in the USA and Russia in 2012. In August, 2019 Samara University scientists together with the colleagues from Samara branch of P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the RAS completed the development of an experimental setup and its first launch confirmed their theoretical calculations. At present there are only five similar operating facilities in the world – one at Samara University, the other four –  at major US research centre. Another one is currently being assembled at the laser centre in Wuhan (China). 

The scheme proposed by Michael Heaven uses diode lasers radiation as an effective optical pump, while in the discharge chamber rare gas atoms — neon, argon, krypton, xenon — are transferred into a metastable excited state in plasma created by an electric discharge at an atmospheric pressure. A much more powerful and high-quality radiation flux is formed in such a gaseous medium than in existing high power diode lasers.

“The proposed combination of technologies allows us to create a compact laser that is capable of providing continuous radiation with a power of up to several megawatts,  – said Professor Michael Heaven. – In addition, the active medium of such a laser contains only inert rare gases and that greatly simplifies the technical implementation and allows us to create a chemically inert version of the laser setup –  unlike alkali metal vapor lasers. "

The setup created by Samara scientists is a laboratory one and will be used to identify the optimal method for producing metastable rare gas atoms and effective laser generation modes. “Now that we have created the installation itself, we will experimentally study the physical principles of constructing such a system –  how to conduct optical pumping, how the discharge power affects the concentration of metastable argon atoms, how the concentration of metastable inert gas atoms depends on the pressure of the mixture,” – said the leading researcher of Samara University "Physics and Chemistry of Combustion" laboratory Pavel Mikheyev.

According to the scientists, these lasers by their energy properties, are close to space blasters described in science fiction novels, and in the future they can be used to create anti-asteroid defense systems of the Earth. Compact high-power lasers can also be in demand in various industries, they can be used for materials processing, measuring the distance between the objects and solving other problems.

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The development of the laser device and research in this area was carried out as part of the implementation of scientific activities on state assignment within the framework of "Optically Pumped Rare-Gas Laser" scientific project (3.1715.2017 / PCh, 2017-2019). The research is also carried out with the support of a mega-grant allocated by the Government of the Russian Federation (Decree of the Russian Federation Government No. 220), at the expense of which "Physics and Chemistry of Combustion" Laboratory was created and at present it operates at Samara University under the guidance of Professor of Florida International University Alexander Mebel. The results of the mega-grant, will allow the team of scientists to offer engine engineers physically reasonable combustion models for constructing fundamentally new environmentally friendly and energy-efficient combustion chambers for gas turbine engines.

References to the theoretical foundations of the studies in scientific publications: