Berlin, Germany--During Laser Optics Berlin (March 19-21), researchers from the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut (FBH) were awarded the Transfer Prize for sustainable transfer of specifically powerful diode lasers for materials processing. In winning the prize, the FBH collaborated closely with Jenoptik Diode Lab (Berlin-Adlershof, Germany) on the project and ensuring the rapid transfer of the research results into an industrial environment.
The Transfer Prize is endowed with 50,000 euros and is assigned by the friends of the Technology Foundation Berlin (TSB). "We are very proud of this award—it manifests and acknowledges the long-term and extraordinarily fruitful collaboration with industrial partners like Jenoptik," says Götz Erbert, leader of the research team. "This is the second time that the FBH has received the prize. In 2004, the institute won for the development of DFB high-power laser diodes. Then the transfer was accomplished with another FBH spin-off, Eagleyard Photonics (Berlin, Germany).
Based on novel designs, the FBH team has developed diode lasers that achieve an efficiency of 63% at an output power of 12 W; 15 to 20 W are expected to be achieved while maintaining excellent efficiency and beam quality. Such diode lasers set the stage for purely diode-laser-based laser systems for materials processing in the future.
Jenoptik Diode Lab is a spinoff of FBH and was founded in 2002. The company runs a semiconductor fabrication in Berlin at the Adlershof campus and continues to use research results from the FBH for its diode lasers. The FHB is part of the Leibniz-Institut fuer Hoechstfrequenztechnik and researches electronic and optical components, modules, and systems based on compound semiconductors.
