What the Tech?! Lasers

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19 Dec 2023
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How laser technology impacted our modern world.

As we’ve written these pieces, it’s been an enjoyable look back at some of the important pieces of technology that’s been influential on our world. One thing we’ve noticed however is that some things are rather subtle and, despite them being rather important, they fall between the cracks in terms of recognition.

Today, we’ll be exploring something that gave us a new way to consume media, a revolutionary way to perform sight correction, a leap forward for logistics and multiple uses in the technology and defense sectors. In this article, we’ll be exploring the laser and it’s impact on the world. Let’s do it!

The Beginnings:

Much of the technology we’ve explored was developed early and refined during times of war. However the laser had a different path to evolution.

While the foundations for the technology were laid out by Albert Einstein in the early 1900’s, it took until 1960 for the first prototype laser to be produced.

Being developed by the Californian based, Hughes Research Laboratory the first design used a synthetic Ruby Crystal. Using a strategy called optical pumping, the ruby was excited using light atoms directed at the crystal. This first laser was in the red range (694.4nm)
While the early development process was labor intensive and had poor efficiency, the technological potential of the invention paired with the increased research of the space race era meant that future development proceeded rapidly.

In these early stages, these experiments typically focused on different mediums for lasers, along with a broader range of bandwidth across the spectrum. Gasses, semi conductors and liquids were all used with the research showing promising developments across many different disciplines.

Like many early developments though, to fully harness the new technology in some fields, would require better performing electronics to assist in bringing the tech to life. Despite the technological promise that the 80’s offered, the time for this to happen was not then. Because of this, it would be a number of years before the possibility of things like Directed Energy Weapons could evolve into the everyday.

Adoption into the Mainstream

Civilian
While it’s easy to understand how weapons and medical technology could be impacted by the new tech, one thing that’s lessor understood was it’s impact on the civilian world.
Probably the best example of this would be the compact disc. Providing new ways to store, consume and distribute media, the CD hit the peak of it’s stride in the 90’s. Developed in the 70’s before being released in 1983, the Compact Disc provided a way to record media without the traditional analogue noise that would often occur with the older formats.

The American artist Billy Joel, would go down in history as the first artist to have an album released in the new format. 52nd Street would live on in history for this reason.

In the medical field, LASIK provided upgrades to optical correction providing visually impaired users with their first viable alternative in some time. We also saw lasers being used for general surgical needs, providing an accurate and less invasive way to perform surgical interventions.

Engineering
Lasers provided an upgrade to many traditional forms of Engineering as well. Providing a way to quickly and easily measure distance, lasers were adopted by surveyors with rangefinders and other measuring equipment fast becoming obsolete due to the new technology. They provided new ways to measure distance or area, quickly and accurately.

Laser provided better ways to work with materials. Source: Wikipedia.

We also saw lasers providing new ways to process and restore metal. While high powered lasers provided new ways to cut materials of all kinds, lower powered lasers also took their place in the scene by providing a way to gently and precisely restore tarnished metals. Due to their lower power, this restoration process damaged the object far less than traditional methods.
Restoration and machining became much easier with laser cutters. Source: pexels.com

Military
Probably the most well known usage of Lasers in the military came with the development of the Paveway series of Laser Guided Bombs. Short for Precision Avionics Vectoring Equipment, Paveway GBU’s provided a fast and accurate way of delivering a kinetic affect to an area.
Early Paveway series weapon. These were used heavily during the first gulf war. Source: Wikipedia.

Using a laser based seeker in the nose, the seeker provided instructions for aerodynamic correction, allowing the weapon to “follow” a path to the ground and desired impact point.
Paveway Seeker Head. Source: Wikipedia

This helped to provide an evolution in air power, with ordnance able to be delivered more precisely. This development helped contribute to the development of the multi role fighter concept. This concept meant that for the first time, a tactical level jet could provide a way to rapidly provide air support in a strategic fashion.
Rather than the massed raids of the past, smaller groups of jets could operate more effectively while still packing a significant punch.

However while the laser guided bomb was indeed successful, it was no silver bullet solution, as it’s deployment would often be significantly affected by the presence of bad weather.
Communications were another field that saw significant military adoption due to the potential they provided. Laser based communications provided a way to send data at high speed via satellite, laying the groundwork for projects like Starlink to exist in today’s world.

Into the Future

It’s fair to say that the adoption of Lasers in both the civilian and military worlds, is by no means finished. Quite the contrary, we are now finding new uses for lasers and electronics due to the advancements in electronics.

For the military, the biggest research field covers the adoption lasers for the usage of Directed Energy Weapons systems. These systems potentially provide a replacement to traditional powder based weapons and a possible solution to the new problem of drone based, swarming weapons systems.

The United States also carried out significant research in the late 2000’s with Boeing’s 747 Based, YAL-1 project. Taking a chemical based laser to the skies, the YAL-1 project provided significant contributions to the development of directed energy systems. While the platform was retired in the late 2010’s it did so after collecting and contributing large amounts of data to the research program.

Boeing’s YAL-1 concept mounted a laser in the nose and gathered large amounts of data. Source: Wikipedia.

In the civilian world, lasers are a hot topic in our new civilian space race. They are providing new methods for communication, as well as possible new propulsion systems. There’s also research being carried out around power “beaming”, using laser based technology to transfer power over significant distance in a wireless fashion.

Lasers also see significant use in modern vehicles, with LIDAR based systems helping to provide measurement and automation in self driving vehicles as well as lane assist and other technology in more conventional vehicles.

It’s also expected that lasers will play a significant role in developing quantum techniques into the future as well.

You could almost say that laser development almost moves at the speed of light!
What the Tech?! is our recurring, twice monthly piece that explores the technology that was integral in shaping our modern world. Find all our articles centralized in our Medium publication.

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