TECHNOLOGY/BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY Holographic Plasma Lenses

Opportunity:

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), operated by the Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS), LLC under contract no. DE-AC52-07NA27344 (Contract 44) with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is offering the opportunity to enter into a collaboration to further develop and commercialize its Holographic Plasma Lenses technology.

Background:

High power laser beams are difficult to manipulate because high light intensities damage solid materials like glass. The current method for reaching higher power levels is to use very large glass optics (e.g. NIF), spreading the power over a larger area to avoid damage. This is prohibitively costly for very high powers. To avoid impractical cost, a better solution would be to use a material that is not so easily damaged by light (e.g. plasma). Prior to this invention there were no viable methods for using plasma as a lens to focus or collimate light.

Description:

Holography fully encodes a 3D light field by imprinting its interference pattern with a reference laser beam in a nonlinear medium. By crossing two pump laser pulses in a gas jet, a hologram can be recorded as a distribution of plasma, allowing manipulation of a subsequent high-intensity probe beam. The interference between two collinear beams with distinct foci produces a plasma zone plate, a diffractive plasma lens capable of focusing or collimating light.

Advantages/Benefits: 

• Enables focusing and collimation of high power or high energy laser beams which would otherwise damage glass optics.
• Enables scaling of laser power densities to PW/cm2 levels and beyond, a million times the current GW/cm2 typical fused silica optical component damage limits.
• Holographic plasma optics can impart almost arbitrary spatial operations, and the mechanism is not limited to the creation of simple lenses.

Potential Applications: 

• High Energy Density Science research facilities.
• Laser Inertial Confinement Fusion power plant development.

Development Status: 

Current stage of technology development:  TRL 2-3

LLNL has filed for patent protection on this invention.

U.S. Patent Application No. 20220291429 Holographic Plasma Lenses published 09/15/2022

LLNL is seeking industry partners with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Moving critical technology beyond the Laboratory to the commercial world helps our licensees gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. All licensing activities are conducted under policies relating to the strict nondisclosure of company proprietary information. 

Please visit the IPO website at https://ipo.llnl.gov/resources for more information on working with LLNL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.

Note:  THIS IS NOT A PROCUREMENT.  Companies interested in commercializing LLNL's Holographic Plasma Lenses technology should provide an electronic OR written statement of interest, which includes the following:

1. Company Name and address.
2. The name, address, and telephone number of a point of contact.
3. A description of corporate expertise and/or facilities relevant to commercializing this technology.

Please provide a complete electronic OR written statement to ensure consideration of your interest in LLNL's Holographic Plasma Lenses technology.

The subject heading in an email response should include the Notice ID and/or the title of LLNL’s Technology/Business Opportunity and directed to the Primary and Secondary Point of Contacts listed below.

Written responses should be directed to:

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Innovation and Partnerships Office

P.O. Box 808, L-779

Livermore, CA  94551-0808

Attention:   IL-13624