LETI transfers microchi¥technology
Microchip-laser technology developed at LETI of the French Atomic Energy Commission (Grenoble, France) has been licensed to the sfim Grou¥(Velizy-Villacoublay, France); the agreement covers large-scale fabrication and distribution of CW and passively Q-switched Nd:YAG microchi¥lasers. The technology transfer will take place during the last part of this year, and full production of the devices by sfim`s Optronics for Defense and Space subsidiary (Dijon, France) will start early in 1996.
The Q-switched microlaser developed at LETI can produce very short 1-ns pulses at 1.06 µm, with peak powers of several kilowatts and pulse repetition rates u¥to 10 kHz. These lasers will, therefore, be ideal for many applications including "eye-safe" (Class 1) time-of-flight rangefinding, micromarking and material processing, and--at green wavelengths (532 nm) obtained by extracavity frequency doubling--alignment and visualization.