*** 95-28553 INRAD, Inc. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project addresses a narrowband, widely tunable infrared light source of wavelengths in the 3-12 micron region. This spectral region is rich in molecular signatures, but there are no commercial laser light sources that are both powerful and broadly tunable in the region. Phase I produced a narrowband, widely tunable optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on zinc germanium diphosphide. Phase II will construct a higher power, narrower bandwidth, more widely tunable prototype source. Improvement will be sought in coatings, the extraction of energy from the OPO, and amplification in an optical parametric amplifier (OPA). Pump laser requirements will be studied for a practical OPO/OPA system. A prototype system will be constructed that generates a few millijoules per pulse of tunable, long-wavelength infrared light in a low divergence beam with a narrow spectral bandwidth. Tunable laser radiation in the 3-12 micron range will be important in studies of molecular species in environmental research and atmospheric remote sensing that use mobile LIDAR systems.***
