ADELPHI, Md. -- As a newly commissioned engineer officer serving as an intern at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory, I investigated the materials that will power tomorrow’s military lasers.
The experience sharpened my technical fluency, patience and leadership skills and taught me that to lead a modern, lethal force, an officer must be as technologically literate as they are tactically proficient.
I recently graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, or USMA, and commissioned as an engineer officer. I chose to study electrical engineering with a concentration in optoelectronics because I was fascinated by its applications in national defense, namely in secure optical communications and directed energy weapons. That interest led to my journey with ARL during my junior year.
My research advisor at USMA introduced me to an opportunity to work with ARL research physicist on laser gain media, which are the materials inside a laser that provide the optical amplification needed to produce a coherent beam. Dr. Ei Ei Brown, ARL research physicist and my mentor, guided me through the basic physics underlying her work in preparation for a summer internship at ARL.
Brown’s work focuses on characterizing novel gain media, which is critical because it absorbs the pump energy to excite electrons into higher energy states in the form of crystals for future applications such as in military lasers ranging from electronic warfare to directed energy.
In the spring of my junior year, I began working with ARL remotely from campus conducting a literature review of laser gain media and analyzed materials with test data to prepare for the internship where data collection on gain media would begin.
The following summer, during my internship at ARL, our team characterized rare-earth doped gain media to experiment with how efficiently they would be able to process light. In collaborating remotely with Brown the previous semester, my transition to the lab was seamless, and I was able to immediately begin meaningful and practical research.
During this internship, I learned the vital role the Department of War facilities and laboratories play in driving innovation for force—particularly, ARL’s focus on fundamental science.
After graduation, before heading to my first duty station, I returned to ARL, working on a temporary gainful employment assignment, shadowing various researchers and finishing a manuscript of our gain media research. This fall, I will head to Stanford University to pursue a graduate degree in electrical engineering, continuing my studies in optics.
Looking ahead, my journey will be centered on leading Soldiers, and these rigorous projects we undertake as interns do more than advance science. They help us become more informed, well-rounded leaders. Complemented by our dedicated summer military training, my internship at ARL allowed me to build patience through constant troubleshooting and confidence through delivering numerous presentations. This experience has also developed my technological literacy, allowing me to understand complex technical research and how emerging capabilities are developed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DEVCOM ARL is the Army’s sole fundamental research laboratory serving as the nexus of science between the military, academia and industry. Operating under the U.S. Army Futures and Concepts Command and the U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command, ARL executes globally recognized research to accelerate delivery of war-winning, disruptive technologies for tomorrow’s Army.
For information, visit the Army Research Laboratory website.
Social Sharing