Wide Applications for New Laser Research

The Air Force may benefit in several ways from service-funded research by husband and wife team Dr. Henry Kapteyn and Professor Margaret Murnane at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Their work has focused on nonlinear optical techniques, leading to transforming visible laser light into ultrafast coherent beams of X-rays. Their work has various applications, including use in remote sensing, missile defense, adapted optics, and micro-machining and could find use in aircraft aerodynamics and high-performance engines. For instance, Murnane explained, “We discovered that the interaction of atoms and molecules is both useful for making coherent X-rays which, in the future, may image previously undetectable cracks in jet turbine blades.” The Air Force Office of Scientific Research funded the research. (AFOSR report by Maria Callier)