News

4 February 2010

 

QPC lasers claim record power and brightness at 1410–1550nm eye-safe wavelengths

At last week’s SPIE Photonics West exhibition in San Francisco, Laser Operations LLC of Sylmar, CA, USA, which manufactures the QPC product line, launched lasers with what are claimed to be record power and brightness operating at ‘eye-safe’ wavelengths of 1410–1550nm.

The firm has shipped the first fully collimated 10kW CW wavelength-stabilized Brightlock stack array. It also announced significant brightness and efficiency improvements across the Ultra laser module product line, including fiber-coupled modules producing 125W CW at 1470nm. Laser Operations says that the new performance levels allow the needs of many medical, military, and material processing applications (which previously required solid-state lasers) to be met with low-cost, efficient and compact diode sources.

Laser Operations has leveraged its unique vertically integrated design and manufacturing capabilities to advance long-wavelength semiconductor lasers, says VP sales & marketing Laurent Vaissie. “With our indium phosphide laser chips now achieving 45% wall-plug efficiency, OEM customers enjoy even higher brightness and lower power consumption from our modules at critical wavelengths such as 1470nm and 1550nm,” he adds.

“The underlying technologies that power these achievements have momentum behind them, and we expect considerable continued improvements in the months to come,” says founder & chief technology officer Jeff Ungar, adding that the advance points the way to 10–100kW-class eye-safe lasers for military and industrial applications.

*As part of the 2nd annual Prism Awards ceremony and banquet (this year marking the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser), the BrightLock Ultra-G green laser received a Prism Award for Photonics Innovation for ‘most innovative laser product of the year’.

Launched by Laser Operations last September, the Ultra-G green laser platform is a visible laser product family based on the firm’s proprietary BrightLock monolithic chip wavelength stabilization technology. 

Designed for medical applications, the Ultra-G MEDICA package includes a compact and cost-effective fiber-coupled source delivering more than 3W CW at 532nm in a narrow-core detachable delivery fiber combined with smart medical features such as a low-power aiming beam, fiber detector and removable blast shield for applications in dermatology and ophthalmology.

The Ultra-G is also available as an energy-efficient, compact and ruggedized package delivering a collimated beam of up to 6W CW of visible green light at 532nm, suited for applications including long-range non-lethal visual disruption applications in defense and law enforcement. Laser display manufacturers developing digital cinema and front projectors can also use the Ultra-G’s BrightLock monolithic stabilization technology for stable and passively cooled operation over a wide temperature range.

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