SuperLight Photonics introduces new portable wideband laser
SuperLight Photonics, a spinoff company developing supercontinuum lasers, has launched a new portable wideband laser, the SLP-1000. The company says this product is the industry’s first portable wideband laser, and offers a high-quality smooth wide spectral output for use as a light source in industrial and medical imaging applications, as well as for the dynamic world of spectroscopy.
Supercontinuum lasers, also known as wideband lasers, provide immense bandwidth while maintaining high coherence and low noise. However, many of today’s industrial solutions are large and heavy, with limited environmental robustness, and require high power. Moreover, although they deliver a wide bandwidth of colours, there is often a dominant colour that stands out, with the others being at low relative power levels.
According to SuperLight Photonics, the SLP-1000 has a compact, battery-operated, and rugged design, weighing 900 grams (32 oz) and having a form factor of less than 1 litre (<1 ). The company adds that the new product is based on Patterned Alternating Dispersion (PAD), and offers a high-quality, coherent and stable spectral output (400nm@-3dB, 1500nm@-20dB) in the Near Infrared (NIR) band at a repetition rate of 100MHz with pulse durations around 20fs pulses. It integrates a seed laser from Menlo Systems, a supplier of instrumentation for high-precision photonics metrology. The laser output is equipped with a Thorlabs-compatible screw thread (SM05), enabling integration with other products from Thorlabs, a designer and manufacturer of photonics laser equipment.
SuperLight Photonics attributes the short pulse duration of around 20fs to having highly efficient SC generators, and says that lower pulse energies can be used at the input of these devices, eliminating the need for pulse broadening for amplification, noise from amplifier stages, and additional optical components. SLP-1000 then provides high-quality nonlinear pulse compression for applications including third harmonic surface imaging and transient absorption spectroscopy.
Haider Zia, founder and CTO of SuperLight Photonics, reflects, "The SLP-1000 is the result of the journey from a spark of an idea, kindled during my tenure at Twente University, to an industrial product reality. The industry demand for a portable, high-quality wideband laser has spanned more than a decade, and today, we proudly answer that call."
