Making a Financial Case for the Geriatric Surgery Verification Program.

Mini abstract The financial benefits of instituting the American College of Surgeons Geriatric Surgery Verification Program far exceed the costs, with the added benefits of enhanced patient satisfaction and improved staff morale.

Three-dimensional modeling of electric-field enhancement in multilayer dielectric gratings arising from inadvertent flaws.

Pulse-compression gratings for high-power, short-pulse laser systems are exposed to high electric fields that are further enhanced locally due to their 2D nanostructured surface. This makes them vulnerable to laser-induced damage. The present work considers the effect on electric-field modulation caused by an array of commonly found inadvertent flaws in gratings including fabrication defects, contamination particles, and laser-induced-damage initiation.

Striated composite layers of silica and hafnia offering advantageous properties for short-pulse optical coatings.

Monolayers containing subnanometer striations of silica and hafnia to form composite materials at varying ratios are explored as a method to develop high-index dielectric layers with increased laser-induced-damage thresholds (LIDTs). These layers can then be used in multilayer dielectric coatings for short-pulse, high-peak-power laser applications, particularly in regions of the highest electric-field intensity. Fabrication is achieved by means of exposure to two different evaporant vapor plumes, where local exposure to each plume is controlled via shielding to prevent simultaneous exposure.

Effect of THz-bandwidth incoherent laser radiation on bulk damage in potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals.

The laser-damage performance characteristics of potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) samples under exposure to a distinctive broadband incoherent laser pulse are investigated. A laser system providing such pulses is intended to explore improved energy-coupling efficiency on the target in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion experiments and provides incoherent bandwidths as large as 10 THz in a nanosecond pulse. A consequence of this bandwidth is very rapid fluctuations in intensity capable of reaching maxima much larger than the average intensity within the pulse.