Transport drones have so far relied on laser LiDARS (Light Detection and Ranging), measuring the pulse that bounces back from a surface to measure distances. The new research has been described as a way to boost the power of such radiation.
A method for producing high-power laser radiation necessary for the development of transport drones has been invented by Russian scientists at the Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.
Transport drones that have been created recently can only work when using laser LiDARS (Light Detection And Ranging). In effect, these lasers collect data about a surface by measuring the “bounce back” time of reflected laser beams to the receiver.
The main difficulty in the use of LiDARS is that to "view" an object hundreds of meters away in whatever weather and conditions, a great deal of power is needed for the laser to be sufficiently bright while operating at nanosecond speeds. At present, fiber and solid-state lasers are used in LiDARS but because they need an additional "pumping" stage (to transfer energy from an external source to the laser), they are inefficient.
The institute's scientists managed to get rid of "an extra stage in the chain of converting energy for the power source into energy for laser radiation," said Sergei Slipchenko, senior researcher at the Ioffe Institute's Laboratory of Semiconductor Laser Diodes.
According to him, they have "proposed an alternative".
"We carried out calculations into the interaction processes between current power and light sources in heterostructures (such as those grown on a substrate, consisting of layers of various materials) and high-power semiconductor laser crystals. Based on this, new designs of semiconductor heterostructures and laser crystal designs were generated for subsequent experimental implementation," Slipchenko added.
©RIA Novosti . Aleksei Danichev / Go to the mediabank
New, optimized layers of heterostructures, consisting of different compositions, resulted in minimal energy loss. Furthermore, the scientists have managed to create a technology for so-called selective epitaxy (a type of crystal growth) for high-power lasers, when heterostructures can be grown on a specially prepared substrate.
As a result of the breakthrough research, the efficiency of high-power semiconductor lasers exceeded 70 percent, which is twice the efficiency of solid-state and fiber lasers. The team of researchers also managed to obtain laser pulses with a duration of 100 nanoseconds and with a peak power of more than 1 kilowatt from a surface measuring fractions of square centimeters.
Nikita Pikhtin, associate professor at the Department of Photonics at LETI and head of the Ioffe Institute's Center for Nanostructure Physics, explained that in high-power lasers, the size of the element and the emitting region must be larger, so that it can convert a greater amount of energy into light.
The next stage of the research, which was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation, will be to increase the spectral brightness of the lasers.
©Photo : Rostec
The Russian Special military operations, December 27th. The main thing:
In the Donetsk direction, during a successful offensive, units of the Kyiv 79th Airborne Assault Brigade were defeated, up to 60 Ukrainian military personnel were destroyed;
The Russian Armed Forces in the South-Donetsk direction destroyed more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers, in the Kupyansky and Krasnolymansky Kyiv directions lost 70 people;
In the Netaylovo (DPR) and Preobrazhenka (Zaporozhye region) regions, the US-made M777 artillery system was destroyed;
Ukraine uses not only NATO weapons, but also Soviet-made weapons, said Alaudinov;
Guterres is ready to mediate on the Ukraine summit only with the consent of all parties, including Russia, RIA Novosti was informed at the UN Secretary General's office;
No mass New Year's events are planned in Donetsk, as Ukrainian forces usually increase shootings for the holidays, said interim adviser to the speaker of the House of Representatives Gagin;
More than 700 critical infrastructure facilities have been damaged in Ukraine since the beginning of the year, says the local Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Russian MoD briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine
- The Russian Army eliminated up to 30 Ukrainian servicemen in the LPR;
- Russian troops eliminated more than 40 Ukrainian servicemen in the DPR;
- Russian forces eliminated more than 70 Ukrainian servicemen in the South Donetsk direction;
- The Russian Army destroyed four Ukrainian Msta-B howitzers and two D-20 howitzers near Kharkov, Kherson, and in the DPR;
- Russian troops hit the 79th Air Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Army in the Donetsk direction, eliminating up to 60 Ukrainian servicemen;
- Russian forces destroyed two Ukrainian Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers in the DPR;
- Russian troops destroyed a US-made M777 artillery system that had been used to shell residential areas of Donetsk.
No comments:
Post a Comment