Northop Grumman scientist Hagop Injeyan is at the forefront when it comes to defense-based technology.
By Muhammed El-Hasan

Today is Friday, November 03, 2006
Originally published Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Updated Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Beaming about the future of lasers

DAILY BREEZE

That’s hot.

Northrop Grumman employee Hagop Injeyan’s job is to come up with
ideas for new lasers for warfare. The laser physicist is a senior
scientist and technical fellow at Northrop’s Space Technology sector
in Redondo Beach. He specializes in solid-state lasers, which use
electricity instead of chemical reactions to power a beam.

Injeyan, 54, has worked at Northrop for 25 years.

The Glendale resident earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
physics from UCLA. He earned his Ph.D. in electrical sciences and
engineering also from UCLA.

What does your job entail?

I do the conceptual design of lasers. I have enough experience to
have my arms around what it takes to build a laser. I do very
preliminary modeling, and I come up with a concept, which somebody
else does detailed analysis and engineering and detailed design for.

My colleagues say I’m the guy who gets them into trouble. I come up
with these ideas that they’re stuck trying to make work. I also do
quite a bit of proposal writing to bring in new business.

Do you have any say in your ideas once you’ve finished conceptual
work?

After the idea goes through the detailed analysis and engineering and
it gets into the lab, then I’m in there with my colleagues
troubleshooting and trying to understand if there are things that are
working differently than expected to make it into fruition.

How do you come up with your ideas?

There are things you look for. You have certain specifications that
you look for, whether it’s energy or beam quality or power. The top
thing is to make sure the eventual system hangs together. You may
have half a dozen specifications and you want to make sure your
design has them plus be as efficient as possible in terms of size,
weight, cost.

Where are you when you get your ideas?

I frequently come up with ideas in the shower. I consider my work an
essential part of who I am. I am frequently thinking about problems
at work no matter where I am, even in social contexts.

Are you afraid of fire?

Sure, I’m afraid of fire. And that’s healthy for all of us. In the
early days when I was working with relatively low-powered lasers, I
was burned a few times, but not anything serious. Now that we have
higher-powered lasers … we have developed a whole process of making
sure everybody is safe. We use lots of mirrors to bounce the beams
around. Behind every mirror, there is a burn-through sensor so that
if for some reason the mirror starts degrading, the burn-through
sensor senses it and immediately shuts down the laser. When these
high-powered lasers are on, we are never in the room. We have never
had a serious incident in our various laser-testing experiments.

What’s the best part of your job?

Interacting with the people I work with. Part of the reason I’ve
enjoyed my stay here, especially the last five to 10 years, is I
think we’re at the threshold of really transforming warfare as we
know it. The lasers we’re developing here are totally defensive in
nature. And they have the potential of making destructive weapons
like artillery and missiles obsolete. I think it’s exciting to be
part of that.

What’s the worst part?

Besides the commute, the worst part of my job is having to deal with
a lot of the paperwork that is necessitated by my job. One of the
things that I am always harassed by management about, lovingly I’m
sure, is that I’m not always filling my timecard properly. We have to
account for every hour we work. It’s paperwork necessitated by the
fact that we do government work.

Do you like the "Star Wars" movies?

I can’t watch "Star Wars." The reason is because every five seconds,
they violate a law of physics. In "Star Trek," on the other hand,
they take great care in that whatever they portray, it’s at least
conceptually possible in the future. I’m a big "Star Trek" fan.

How does "Star Wars" violate the laws of physics?

For example, those light sabers they use, light will not propagate a
certain distance and stop. Another example, light particles cannot
collide. They just go through each other. It is possible to have a
laser beam and cut somebody’s hand off with it. But laser beams don’t
bounce off each other. So the concept of a light saber is so
violently opposed to physics, I can’t deal with it.

How is "Star Trek" more realistic?

The concept of a Holodeck. I’ve spent nights thinking about how it
can be made possible where not only do you see images in 3-D form,
but you can experience and interact with those images. Those images
don’t have to be there for you to experience them. That’s the kind of
thing that I really enjoy about "Star Trek." It’s not only
entertaining, but it stimulates thought. The other thing I like about
"Star Trek" is the replicator. It can make any food you want. That is
a very viable concept. You have certain atoms and molecules, and how
do you arrange them together to get what you want?

Have you ever gone to a "Star Trek" convention?

No. I’m not at that level.

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