Experimental Realization of a Reflective Optical Limiter

A typical optical limiter protects sensitive components (such as optoelectronic sensors---or eyes) from a high-power laser by transmitting only low-intensity light, at the cost of absorbing most of the energy itself, which can cause irreversible damage. The authors present a photonic limiter that instead reflects the high-power radiation backward to free space, across a broad frequency range. Their limiter has a much higher damage threshold, and provides much stronger laser suppression.