Air Force Awards Aculight Second Contract

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) debuted its semiconductor laser indoor propagation range (SLIPR) at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. The range, which consists of a 3500-sq-ft...

Many technologies — from communications, to radar and sensing, to positioning and navigation — rely on low-noise microwave signals for precise timing and synchronization. Advances in...

A team at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) developed an electrically pumped, topological, bulk quantum cascade laser (QCL) that operates in the terahertz (THz) frequency range. The THz QCL is...

The development of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting has been a great success story of our times. LEDs are nearly ideal light sources that have largely replaced other lighting technologies, except...

The RPR-0720 from ROHM Semiconductor is a compact 2.0 mm × 1.0 mm proximity sensor for applications requiring attachment, detachment, and proximity detection. Integrating a vertical-cavity...

The sQCL and LaserTune-S from Block Engineering are compact mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) that offer a six-fold increase in laser power, orders of magnitude better thermal and temporal...

The LSP-LRS-1200 and -1000 from LumiSpot Tech are 905-nm laser ranging modules that can be used in laser range finding, distance sensing, consumer, and defense applications. The LSP-LRS-1200 can...

The QCW Bar Stacks series from Lumispot Tech features high-power semiconductor lasers with a compact structure and various array configurations. The bar stacks utilize gold tin hard soldering...

Unlike an edge emitter, a VCSEL has a maximum operating power that is not limited by catastrophic optical damage of the exit aperture because its aperture is larger and its PN junction does not...

Neodymium-doped crystals and glasses such as Nd:YAG (neodymium:yttrium aluminum garnet) have long been used as laser gain materials. Optically pumped, they produce an output wavelength close to 1...

Laser diodes vary widely in their wavelengths, powers, spectra and beam quality. Yet they share two fundamental components with all other lasers: an optical amplifier and a resonator that confines...

Over 60 years have passed since the first demonstration of a laser in 1960. After the initial spark of interest, lasers were for a while categorized as “a solution waiting for a problem,”...

Everything you need to know about soldering, mounting, thermal management, drive current, environment, and more, regarding extending the lifetime of your laser diodes.

While high laser-induced damage threshold is a buzzword when talking femtosecond & picosecond optics, it is not (only) the nominal LIDT value that matters. Color-change effect is an arch-enemy and a...

High-speed adaptive correction of optics, based on real-time metrology feedback, has benefitted numerous scientific communities for several decades. However, it remains a major technological...

Small, precise motion modules enhance NGS system design and performance. Following the Human Genome Project, companies are racing to develop Next-Gen Sequencing (NGS) instruments for DNA sequencing....

William Brown presents a history and future projection of lasers in dentistry, starting with the early wavelength research into laser applications for dental procedures. He also covers the current...

The automotive industry is facing tremendous change, including the advent of the electric car. To address the growing need to weld the copper required for electric vehicles, new high-power green and...

Wlodzimierz Strupinski, Ph.D., and Marcin Gebski, Ph.D., of VIGO Photonics offer perspective to industry specialists and experts who share a technological interest in the epitaxy, processing, and...

The field of laser optics, while by no means new, continues to be a subject of confusion and frustration, but also exciting innovation. Recent developments in laser technologies have enabled...

A helium-neon (HeNe) laser is a type of gas laser that emits visible red light at a wavelength of 632.8 nanometers (nm). It operates based on the principle of stimulated emission of photons from...

Laser drift typically refers to a phenomenon where the frequency or wavelength of a laser source gradually changes over time. In the context of lasers, stability in terms of frequency or wavelength...

GaN (Gallium Nitride) distributed feedback (DFB) lasers refer to a specific type of semiconductor laser based on Gallium Nitride materials and designed with a distributed feedback structure. These...

An exciton is a quasiparticle that represents the bound state of an electron and a hole in a solid-state material, typically a semiconductor or an insulator. In simpler terms, an exciton is a paired...

Are you wondering how to select a laser for your application? Our knowledgeable staff has over 100 years of combined experience and will teach you how to select a laser that best fits your needs....

Tune into this month’s edition of Light Matters for the complete list of Photonics Media’s Industry Beacon award winners. We’ll also introduce you to an Industry Beacon in the Educator category, and...

In this month’s Light Matters Extra, we take you to the Springfield Technical Community College campus and introduce you to Professor Nick Massa, who has been teaching Optics and Photonics there for...

As a leader in the laser system and LED light sources business, Omicron-Laser has been developing, manufacturing, and distributing innovative laser and LED light sources since 1989. Omicron offers CW...

A diode laser is a type of laser that uses a semiconductor diode as the active medium to generate coherent light. Semiconductor diodes are electronic devices that conduct electricity primarily in one...

A distributed feedback laser is a laser system in which feedback is used to make certain modes in the resonator oscillate more strongly than others.

FOCtek provides customers with all types of custom manufactured lenses, Precision Optical Components, Polarizing Optics, Prisms, Filters, Coatings, Optical Systems, Crystals, Nonlinear Crystals,...

OHARA manufactures more than 130 environmentally safe optical glass types, free of both lead and arsenic. More than 300 tons of optical glass are melted per month, available in the following forms of...

Established in 1985, OZ Optics is a leading worldwide supplier of fiber optic components, test equipment and sensors. OZ Optics manufactures its products in three locations, Ottawa (Canada),...

LASER SAFETY • Eyewear • Barriers • Windows • Training laservision USA designs and manufactures a comprehensive assortment of custom-made laser safety eyewear that attenuates...