Colorado State University Receives Laser System from Boeing Directed Energy Systems

The Directed Energy Systems unit of Boeing Strategic Missile and Defense Systems has donated a short-pulse, high-peak power laser system – and peripheral materials – to Colorado State University as part of Boeing’s collaboration with faculty members in the university’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department.

“We are delighted to receive this donation,” said Sandra Biedron, associate professor at CSU who, with Professor Stephen Milton and others in the department, will use the equipment for research and teaching. “We are already working closely with Boeing on several activities, including advancements in beam and laser technologies. This will strengthen basic science and technology developments in directed energy between CSU and Boeing.

“Our sponsor, the Office of Naval Research, is also pleased with the generous Boeing gift and its future use for ONR basic research.”

The laser system will help faculty members in the department address pivotal research into accelerators, which are used in everything from security and medical equipment to cleaner water and air.

“We have several ongoing activities with CSU’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and this laser will help with those activities as well as provide a piece of hardware for graduate students to perform doctoral thesis work,” said Mark Curtin, a project team lead at Boeing. “We look forward to seeing research results from this gift.”

Biedron and Milton are among 15 scientists and engineers handpicked to collect facts for a U.S. Department of Energy report to Congress about the future of accelerator science and technology. They are charged with talking to other scientists in their fields, the users of particle accelerators, program managers in other services and federal agencies, and industry about accelerator technology and advancements that could be made in the next 10 years.

Biedron previously served as Security and Defense Working Group co-chair for a DOE report titled “Accelerators for America’s Future” submitted to Congress in 2010.

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