Laser damage experts to converge in Boulder for 45th meeting in SPIE-sponsored series

12 July 2013
NIST facility at Boulder, Colorado
Laser Damage will return to the NIST facility in Boulder, Colorado, in September.

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA -- Scientists and engineers working on high-power, high-energy lasers and systems will bring their latest findings and challenges to SPIE Laser Damage 2013, the field's leading physics and technology forum, in Boulder, Colorado, this fall. The technology has wide-ranging impacts, with applications in industrial materials processing, remote sensing, large-scale displays, surgery, anti-missile weapons, laser-induced nuclear fusion, and fundamental research.

This year's event is the 45th of the series, and will run 22-25 September at the Boulder offices of NIST, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The event will include poster and oral presentations with no parallel sessions, a round-robin damage testing exercise, and a kickoff roundtable discussion on "Effects of Laser Field Enhancement in Laser-induced Damage." In addition to laser technology, presentation topics will include materials and thin films, durability, properties modeling, testing, and component fabrication.

The meeting also features a mini-symposium titled "To High-Power Limits of Fiber Lasers," and the shared results of a thin film damage competition.

Conference co-chairs are:

  • Gregory Exarhos, Pacific Northwest National Lab
  • Vitaly Gruzdev, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia
  • Joseph Menapace, Lawrence Livermore National Lab
  • Detlev Ristau, Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V.
  • MJ Soileau, Univ. of Central Florida.

Registration and complete program details are available on the event website.

Proceedings are published online in the SPIE Digital Library starting immediately after the event as manuscripts are approved, with CD publication when all manuscripts are in. The series of conference proceedings has become a comprehensive source of information on optics for lasers and includes topics on laser-induced damage mechanisms, materials and thin film preparation, durability, properties modeling, testing, and component fabrication.

Read the report from last year's event.

SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. The Society serves nearly 225,000 constituents from approximately 150 countries, offering conferences, continuing education, books, journals, and a digital library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange, professional networking, and patent precedent. SPIE provided over $3.2 million in support of education and outreach programs in 2012.

Laser Damage conference co-chairs
From left, Laser Damage conference co-chairs at the 2012 meeting: MJ Soileau, Joseph Menapace, Gregory Exarhos, Detlev Ristau, and Vitaly Gruzdev.

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