A laser illuminator is a device which illuminates a target, group of targets or area with laser radiation, normally to guide laser guided weapons. A device for enhancing the illumination in a zone of action by irradiating with a laser beam.
Adjustable Beam Diameter
Telescope & Weapons mountable
Lowest Beam divergence and Bigger Beam diameter at Aperture
Perfect Temp00 Beam Mode and Beam profile quality
Flexible long range illumination effect
Enables long-range warning at checkpoints
Safely determines intentions of approaching parties
Deters hostile action and reduces collateral damage
Perfect Collimated Laser Beam
Lowest Beam divergence and Bigger Beam Dia. at Aperture
Adjustable Beam Diameter and Divergence
Longer Duty Cycle; can work continuously for long time
Class IIM Eye-safe Laser: FDA Compliant Safety
Can these laser illuminators be used as Laser dazzlers?
Most ordinary green laser illuminators are powered around 10-50mW in its aperture output power, while their average power density distributed in larger beam diameter is around 1-3mw, so these laser illuminators are typical of Class 2M lasers which are eye safe because of the blink reflex if not viewed through optical instruments.
As with class 1M, this applies to laser beams with a large diameter or large divergence, for which the amount of light passing through the pupil cannot exceed the limits for class 2.
These LOW POWERED laser illuminators can certainly be used as laser dazzlers since 532nm green laser beam is the most visible laser light sensitive to human eyes, but they only work for short distance(<20 Meters) dazzling or disorienting purposes since , the max effects of these portable are flash-blindness and glare.
BeamQ can enhance the total output power of these green laser illuminators up to 100mw or higher and the user must use them with caution.
A subject will experience temporarily intense, non-injurious light in his eyes. In addition, direct, intra-beam exposure to these lasers appears bright and will disrupt ocular performance, particularly in vision-critical tasks like driving a vehicle. When correctly employed, "dazzlers" produce a temporary loss of clear sight by affecting the central field of vision, similar to other intense light sources, such as a bright photographic flash or an oncoming vehicle's high-beam headlights. An individual without enhanced vision who is illuminated or dazzled by the laser's beam would suffer no permanent injury when engaged at the distances provided in the systems' capabilities and limitations documents. That individual may experience some residual color images or visual spottiness lasting a matter of seconds. In general, the impairment effect will rapidly dissipate, with a minimum recovery time of one second. (32)
BACKGROUP INFO ON LASER ILLUMINATORS
A laser beam has an intensity spatial distribution with respect to a plane perpendicular to the traveling direction thereof. When a laser beam is used as a light source, it is required to use a center area of the laser beam having a more uniform intensity spatial distribution or to make the un-uniform intensity spatial distribution uniform in any suitable manners.
A laser beam radiating with a multimode which has a very complicated intensity spatial distribution, can illuminate a relatively large object uniformly. However, when a relatively small object to be observed using a microscope is illuminated, a laser beam radiating with a multimode cannot be used as a proper light source as it is, because un-uniformity of the un-uniform intensity spatial distribution becomes visible.
In a laser beam, which radiates with a basic TEM 00 mode, the intensity spatial distribution of the laser beam is a Gaussian distribution. Therefore, even if the center area of the laser beam having a relatively uniform intensity spatial distribution is selectively used, the intensity spatial distribution of the selected area cannot be completely uniform and a large portion of the power of the laser beam is consumed wastefully.
When a un-uniform intensity spatial distribution of a laser beam exists, out-of-focus illumination by the laser beam may be used for uniform illumination. However, variations in intensity due to interference of the laser beam cannot be overcome absolutely.
Conventionally, there is known an illumination method using a laser beam in such a manner that a laser beam is radiated on a dispersion element, such as a diffraction grating (refer to non-patent document 1), a mesh screen (refer to non-patent document 2), or an optical diffusion plate (refer to non-patent document 3) to obtain a pseudo light source from the surface of the dispersion element for use in illumination. However, since a laser beam has a high coherence, interference noises called speckle noises occur.
It is to be understood that a phase of the laser beam is not completely disturbed at random by diffusion. A light intensity becomes extremely high at an area where the phase is accidentally in order, while the light intensity becomes zero at an area where the phase is out of order by 180°, which results in generating a spot noise of a granular pattern. This is referred to as a speckle noise.
In order to reduce the speckle noises, a laser beam is circularly rotated with respect to a dispersion element (refer to non-patent documents 1, 2 and 3) or a diffraction grating, screen mesh, or light diffusion plate is moved using a piezo element (refer to non-patent document 4) so that an object is more uniformly illuminated by changing an interference pattern. However, in this method, uniformity is not satisfactory and a large amount of light is scattered.
As an alternative method, there is proposed a method of reducing speckle noises using plural optical fibers having different lengths (refer to patent document 1). However, the bundle structure using plural optical fibers has particularly a large incident loss and the total light transmittance is at most 50%. When the structure is used at resolution power level of an optical system, a huge number of optical fibers are required, and noises cannot be removed substantially.
In contrast, there is proposed a method of combination of a plate for disturbing phase randomly and bundled optical fibers (refer to patent document 2). In this method, an effect for more randomly disturbing phase can be expected, however, total system becomes more complicated and leads to a larger loss of light amount.
There is proposed to divide a single optical fiber into plural branches on the way to realize the similar effect (patent document 3). However, dividing the optical fiber has a large reflection loss of light at the branch position although uniformity can be better.
