Laser clean room
The Directed Energy Research Center facilities is equipped with a 77 m2 room ISO 7 level cleanroom. The cleanroom is a controlled environment where temperature and humidity are controlled and, dust particles up to 0.5 µm size are filtered. This cleanliness level is obtained thanks to high-performance HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) system and the use of HEPA (High-Efficiency Particulate Air) filter that maintains a constant filtered-air flow with positive pressure inside the room.
The controlled environment of the clean room guarantees that all experiments performed in this area will be free of influence of atmospheric changes like temperature or humidity level, assuring high precision results. For this reason, the clean room is the ideal area to do research and development for laser manufacture, microwave photonics devices, free space optics and semiconductor developments.
The cleanroom counts with four scientific-degree optical tables with vibration isolation systems. Additionally, the cleanroom is equipped with electrical grounding and furniture materials to avoid Electro Static Discharges (ESD) to avoid any accidental damage in highly sensitive electronics/optoelectronics.
In-door and Out-door laser laboratories
Complementary to the laser clean room, DERC has high-power laser laboratories for material resistance and laser industrial application will enforce laser laboratory capabilities. These laser laboratories, designed with full mobility, are used to do experiments either indoor for laser-matter interaction analysis under controlled atmosphere or outdoor for free space propagation under desert climatic conditions in order to study thermal blooming and turbulence effects.
These laboratories are equipped with multi-kW laser sources with a focusing range capability over few km mounted on a controlled arm. They are provided with all the required instrumentation to characterize laser beam and laser-matter effects. The laser laboratories accomplish with the standard IEC 60825 for laser safety and have computing systems with state-of-the-art software for optics development and multiphysics simulation.