SAN FRANCISCO, CA--Besides the already hyped green-laser diode launched by Kaai (see page 4), the North and South Halls of the Moscone Center were filled with new products for Photonics West 2010; more than you would assume considering the economic downturn of 2009.
In the laser category (lasers rule 2010!), 3S Photonics demonstrated 1064 nm single-lateral-mode laser diodes with Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) wavelength-stabilized continuous wave and pulsed operation exceeding 1 W peak power at 2.35 A; Newport Spectra-Physics showcased the Tristar 355–2 diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) industrial laser for LED scribing with more than 2 W of 355 nm output at 90 kHz and a short pulse width of less than 25 ns; Oclaro announced its Prosario fiber-coupled diode platform with 60 W at 8xx nm from fiber diameters of 400–800 micron in an industry standard footprint (and announced a powerful 7 W 808 nm single emitter pump module); Alfalight also showed its 6-pin series 808 nm laser diode with 3.5 W output.
New detector and imaging products included Spectrum Detector's T.rad broadband radiometer with performance rivaling Golay cells, 5X less expensive, and measuring from 3 to 0.1 THz and 100 nW to 20 mW, as well as its mach 5 130 kHz digital joulemeter that can capture and store up to 4 million pulses in real time and measure from 100 fJ to 20 mJ.
For metrology and manufacturing, Labsphere displayed its 40 inch HalfMoon LED Measurement System (HMS-4011) and used it in a live demo to measure QD Vision's Quantum Light Optics paired with the Nexxus Array Par30 LED lamp; CILAS announced the 'largest' thin-film coating system, a magnetron sputtering system that can coat large optics up to 2 x 2 meters with a very high uniformity (it has already been selected to coat the silver plating on the Megajoule Laser's amplifier reflectors for the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and to refurbish the mirrors in the French Weaponry Department's (DGA) Odeillo solar furnace); and Phasics introduced KaleoMatic for lens characterization, which uses Phasics-patented wavefront sensor and metrology techniques to measure focal length, MTF, aberrations, surface quality, radius of curvature, and other parameters.
Clearly, even a bad economy in 2009 couldn't stop the innovation train. And please remember to submit your new products for the CLEO/Laser Focus World Innovation Award at www.cleoconference.org/CLEOApplications/CLEOLFWinnovationawards.aspx.
--Gail Overton