Bottleneck optical limiters: the optimal use of excited-state absorbers

Passive nonlinear absorptive limiters offer an effective means to protect human eyes and other focal-plane sensors from damage by pulsed laser radiation. New device designs are proposed in which dye molecules are driven into strong ground-state depletion by the incoming threat pulse while the internal fluence values are kept below the material failure level. Pulse-energy suppression ratios greater than 10(4) for 10-ns pulses together with linear transmission greater than 70% should be possible with existing dyes.