Dr. Denman

Craig Denman, Ph.D.

Dr. Craig A. Denman has 27 years of experience in applied research and development of lasers. He was the principal investigator responsible for the design and development of the 50-watt sodium guidestar laser system that is in operation at the Air Force Starfire Optical Range. Early in his career, Dr. Denman's research focused on the power scaling of continuous wave single-frequency lasers, leading to significant practical improvements in injection-locked laser technology. Subsequently, much of his career has been dedicated to the application of high power injection-locked laser technology to non-linear frequency conversion, where world-record power levels have been obtained from resonant doubling, singly resonant optical parametric oscillation, and doubly resonant sum-frequency generation. Additionally, as an early fiber laser proponent, Dr. Denman co-initiated and led the AFRL LITE fiber laser program during its first defining years before proposing his concept for the sodium guidestar laser and taking the lead in its development. Dr. Denman received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico.

Dr. Denman is a Fellow of the Air Force Research Laboratory and a recipient of the Air Force John L. McLucas Basic Research Award. He has also been a contributing member to the Advanced Solid State Photonics conference. In 2005, Dr. Denman was the program co-chair when the conference went to Vienna, Austria; its first time to Europe.