A module of an automatic adjustment system has been developed and studied, consisting of a scaled segment of the main four-pass amplifier of the Iskra-6 128-beam laser apparatus. The adjustment methods are based on the use of small light markers, centered with the stops of the elements. The adjustment algorithm, the image-processing methods, and the adjustment accuracy and rate have been experimentally investigated. A software package has been developed for modeling radiation propagation through the optical system and the automatic adjustment of the system, and a comparison has been made with experiment. The results serve as a basis for further development of the system for automatically adjusting the laser apparatus. (C) 2006 Optical Society of America.

This paper describes methods and results of the study of a complex for measuring the spectrozonal radiance factors in the UV, visible, and near-IR ranges. It has been checked in the laboratory and in full-scale experiments that the characteristics of the apparatus correspond to the technical requirements. The greatest detail for the recording and presentation of the spatial distribution of the radiance factors is 492×574 elements. The measurement error of the radiance factors in the range 0.1-10 is no more than 20%.

A remote systems has been developed for the adjustment of the Luch 16 kJ, four-channel Nd-glass laser apparatus. The adjustment methods are based on comparison of the position of the beam of an adjusting laser-relative to stops in the near and far fields. The elements of the system are cw lasers, beam-position monitoring sensors based on controllable television (TV) cameras, high precision rotating mirror mounts with stepper-motor. drives, motor controllers, TV switches, and a controlling computer. The results of theoretical studies of the adjustment system are presented. Ways are considered of converting the remote adjustment system to an automatic adjustment system. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.

A pyrometric sensor has been created for operation under conditions of intense air flows in the temperature range -20...+40 degreesC. It is intended for the thermal mapping of highways and has been tested as part of a measurement-and-information system based on the KP-514MP automotive laboratory. The sensor is compact, has low power requirements, and is suitable for the automatic control systems of technological processes that use noncontact temperature monitoring. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.

Based on tests of commercial devices under shop conditions and an analysis of the features of monitoring the temperature of alloys, an approach is proposed that combines the advantages of contact and noncontact measurement methods. A prototype of an pyrometric sensor has been developed. Comparative measurements using the prototype and an immersion thermocouple have shown good agreement. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.

The results of work on creation of a system for remote control alignment of high-power multichannel Nd-glass laser systems, being created in VNIIEF and NIIEFA, are presented. Methods and principles of alignment, high-accuracy driving units for mirrors tilts and pinholes travels, CCD-sensor capable of accepting weak radiation fluxes with a wavelength lambda =1,053 mum are considered.

This paper describes a method and CCD-array-based apparatus for obtaining maps of the radiance factors of objects and segments of natural scenes. The spectral range of operation of the apparatus is 350-1000 nm, and the resulting radiance-factor maps have 385 x 285 elements within a working field of 17 degrees X 17 degrees. The operating range of the apparatus in the active regime is as much as 100 m, and the measurement error is at most 20%. (C) 2001 The Optical Society of America.

Experimental data are presented on the diurnal behavior of the correlation coefficient for the luminance of a fragment of the earth's surface in the infrared (2-20 mu m) and visible (0.5-0.7 mu m) ranges. It is concluded from the data that the diurnal variation of the correlation coefficient is stable. (C) 2000 The Optical Society of America. [S1070-9762(00)00310-9].

This paper proposes a measurement complex for diagnosing the photometric and space-time properties of the leader of a lightning discharge. It is assumed that it can be used to develop a technology for the optimum reception and formation of signals for controlling a laser beam that forms a long spark. The transmission of the atmosphere in the region to 200 nm and the background radiation under thunderstorm conditions have been experimentally studied. (C) 1999 The Optical Society of America.

An analysis of original data obtained in different seasons on the scattering and transmission of CO2-laser radiation in the atmosphere is presented. It is established that molecular and aerosol absorption make the main contribution to the attenuation. Data from investigations performed under natural conditions show much higher directionality of the scattering functions than the theoretical models do. For scattering angles from 0 degrees to 45 degrees the directional scattering index drops by more than a factor of 100. A model representation is proposed for the scattering function near 10.6 mu m in the surface layer of the atmosphere. (C) 1999 The Optical Society of America. [S1070-9762(99)00511-4].

The results of demonstration experiments on the stabilization of a focused beam of radiation from a repetitively-pulsed CO2 laser on a laboratory path, simulating distortions on an approximately 3 km long real path in the surface layer of the atmosphere, are presented. Under conditions of time-varying optical distortions in the path, it is shown experimentally that the method of beam stabilization according to the position of a bright speckle, as proposed at the Scientific Research Institute of Laser Physics and implemented at low power level in V. E. Sherstobitov, V. I. Kuprenyuk, D. A. Goryachkin et al., Proc. SPIE 3684, 51 (1999), increases the efficiency of high-power CO2-laser radiation delivery on a diffraction-size detector by a factor of 3-4 as compared with no stabilization. (C) 1999 The Optical Society of America. [S1070-9762(99)00411-X].

Some aspects of a new method of registrating radioactive ejections to the atmosphere from, for instance, nuclear power stations are discussed. The method based on the remote dejection of the optical flourescence of the air ionized by the radionuclides of the ejections. We propose to detect the three blue optical emission bands from the highly ionized molecules of oxygen. This will provide reliable selection of the ejection radiation from the radiation of other natural or artificial sources. The apparatus for remote detection of the regular ejections from nuclear power stations for the purpose of experimental testing the new method is developed in the framework of the proposal for International Science and Technology Center number 1240 'Development of the optical method of the remote registration of radioactive air ejections'.

The results are presented on experimental investigations of action onto an optical glass BK-7 and some other materials of a CO2 laser radiation with the pulse duration of 20-70 mu s and the energy density of 0.1-3 J/cm(2). The dynamics of a thermal response, temperature of heating and emissivity of irradiated glass samples are under consideration. The results obtained can be used in imaging techniques for objects selection.