Laser Sc ience Celebrates 25year s of Ser vice in India

Newly Launched Prod-ucts:

Coherent’s new Flare series

Coherent, Inc. USA ‘s SapphireTM lasers.

Semrock’s 11-band filter

New PCO.dimax high speed cameras.

Femtolasers Produktions’ MOSAIC™ OS

Inside this issue:

Addressing Future In-dustrial Needs - Beneq

2

Fun Zone: Did You Know?

2

Excimer Laser Treat-ment for Superior Diesel Engines

3

Newly Launched Prod-ucts

4

Br ing ing Tomor row’s Tec hnology to Indian Labs

Laser Science has recently made two new installa-tions in India, at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Delhi and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Kolkata.

At NPL, Laser Science has installed a 35 fs, 1KHz Regenerative Amplified Laser system coupled with Optical Parametric Amplifier (OPA) from Coher-ent Inc, USA. The oscillator “Micra” is a one box, tunable broad-bandwidth oscillator integrated with the DPSS laser Verdi. The output of this oscillator is > 350 mW @ 800 nm with an adjustable band-width of <30 nm to > 100 nm and peak tunability of 760 nm to 850 nm (30 nm bandwidth). The oscillator output is seeded to the “Legend EliteF HE+-II-USP” amplifier pumped with Evo-lution-30, a 20 mJ @ 1 KHz, 250 ns 527 nm DPSSL KHz pump laser. The output of the regen-erative amplifier is 4 mJ @ 1 KHz centered around 800 nm with a pulse width of <35 fs.

The TOPAS OPA offers a wavelength tunability from 190 nm to 2600 nm, thus covering the deep UV to NIR with an output pulse duration of ~60 fs while the pulse width is measured by the short pulse autocorrelator model, PulseCheck, from APE.

At IISER Kol-kata, Laser Science has installed a 60 fs, 250 KHz Regenera-tive Amplified Laser system coupled with an OPA from Coher-ent Inc, USA. The oscillator “Mantis” is a one box, broad-bandwidth (70 nm) oscillator with an integrated pump la-ser, providing a fixed wavelength output of > 400 mW at 800 nm. The oscillator output is seeded to a 250 KHz short-pulsed (~60 fs) amplifier “RegA 9050” with > 6 µJ energy. Repetition rate is variable from 1 KHz up to 300 KHz. The output of the amplifier is split into two beams to pump two short-pulse OPA’s, i.e. OPA 9450 & 9850, which extends the wavelength coverage of RegA into visible & infrared spectral range.

L A S E R S C I E N C E S E R V I C E S ( I ) P V T . L T D . MAY 2013

ISSUE 2

Laser Science Services (I) Pvt. Ltd, is pleased to announce that this year, 2013, marks the comple-tion of 25years of its service to the scientific and industrial community in India.

Laser Science started the celebration of its silver jubilee year in March 2013, by holding the annual meeting for all members of the LS family, in Naini-taal, a gorgeous hill station in Uttarkand, in the North of India.

These celebrations were continued in Mahape, Navi Mumbai with the opening of the new Laser Science office on the second floor of the LS build-ing in April 2013. The inauguration of the new office was done by performing a small havan - an Indian ritual performed in order to spread positiv-ity at the beginning of anything new.

Dr. Lalit Kumar, Founder and managing director, Laser Sci-ence, fondly recalls his journey of the past 25 years. “The last 25 years of my life have been an exciting journey, building Laser Science to get it to where it is today. I started LS partnering with Coherent Inc. and I am happy and thankful that this asso-ciation continues till date. Simi-larly I am thankful to all my principals, customers, the Indian scientific community and most impor-tantly my entire team at Laser Science, for their immense hard-work, dedication and unwavering support,” he said.

System installed at IISER, Kolkata

Dr. & Mrs. Lalit Kumar at the inauguration of the new office, at Mahape, Nav i Mumbai

Tomorrow Today - A Laser Sc ience Newslett er

System installed at NPL, Delhi

Beneq, based in Finland, is a leading sup-plier of production and research equip-ment for thin film coatings, as well as one of the world’s premier manufacturers and developers of thin film electroluminescent (TFEL) displays.

Beneq thin film equipment is used for sub-micron thick coatings in photovoltaics, organic electronics, glass strengthening, and other emerging thin film applications.

Improving the efficiency of CIGS solar cells

The Beneq TFS 1200B is the first ALD system capable of handling real-sized thin film PV module substrates. It is not just size but also throughput that makes this system ideal for PV production: for a panel of size 1200 × 1600 (mm) onto which a 50 nm thick Zn(O,S) buffer layer is deposited, the TFS 1200B can reach a throughput of 60 panels per hour, translating into approximately 140 MWp/year.

Enhancing the endurance of organic electronics

Beneq is pioneering the use of ALD in the organic and printed electronics industry by offering an equipment portfolio spanning from laboratory to industrial production. Beneq can offer customers the capability to size-up from 200 × 200 (mm) rigid substrate sized R&D systems to Gen5 industrial systems. Considering the fact that interest towards flexible substrates has increased substan-tially in recent years, the introduction of Roll-to-Roll ALD, another Beneq first, does not come as much of a surprise. Beneq’s WCS 500 is capable of coating 400,000 m²/year at a web width of 500mm.

Addressing Future Indust r ia l Needs - Beneq

DID YOU KNOW: Interest ing Facts About Laser s

PAGE 2

TOMORROW TODAY - A LASER SCIENCE NEWSLETTER

DID YOU KNOW?

1. When NASA invented the Curiosity Rover, which successfully landed on Mars last August, it opened up a new chapter in space exploration: the use of laser-based instruments to probe the surface com-position of other planets. Otherwise known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the rover which weighs nearly a ton, was designed to be a labora-tory on wheels, capable of performing sophisti-cated analyses on the red planet’s rough terrain.

2. ‘Light Touch’ is an interactive projector that in-stantly transforms any flat surface into a touch screen, allowing users to interact with multimedia content using multi-touch technology. Light Touch uses ‘holographic laser projection’ technol-ogy, which creates bright, high-quality video im-ages in WVGA resolution. Integrated infrared

sensors detect motion and turn the projected image into a 10.1” virtual touch screen, so the user can control the projector and inter-act with applications by simply touching the image.

3. In the field of forensic sciences, bullet trajec-tory laser rods are used to improve precision and save time. These rods are used to deter-mine the exact point of origin and distance from which a gun was fired, or in the case where more than one person may have been shooting, the exact original location and trajectory angle of each bullet fired.

4. Spectroscopy, which involves the analysis of materials by studying how they reflect and absorb light, can be used for the identification of traces of substance resi-dues such as accelerants, illegal drugs, or poisons, in forensic science. Infrared laser spectroscopy is used to detect explosive components or illegal drugs in samples.

Beneq holds the world record in substrate size coated with ALD with this 1200 × 1200 (mm) glass sub-strate coated with a Zn(O,S) buffer layer for CIGS solar cells. Subsequently, capability to handle 1200 × 1600 (mm) size substrates has been developed.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture 55 high-resolution images, which were stitched together to create this full-color self-portrait.

Coatings enabled by Beneq ALD are present in many different kinds of products, from solar cells to flexible electronics.

-ogy of laser treated cylinders at the microscopic scale. They also took a section from the upper part of one of the cylinders from a TDI engine after 800 hours of running time. This cross-section was com­positionally analyzed by TEM (transmis­sion elec-tron microscopy).

Analysis of the SEM and TEM results indicates that UV laser nitridation produces three effects that contribute to wear reduction. First, the surface is an­nealed to a depth of about 2 µm, allowing overall smoothing of the surface. Second, the process cre-ates a hard nitrogen-rich surface layer, which is still present even after 800 hours of engine operation. And, perhaps most important, the laser creates a micro-hydrodynamic structure due to opening the graphite lamellae. These spaces act as tiny wells that capture the lubrication oil, result-ing in a unique tri-bological effect.

Mechanical honing creates a surface topol-ogy characterized by myriad microscopic grooves. These act as interlinked microchan-nels, allowing oil to escape as the ring moves over the liner surface. In contrast, the new process cre-ates tiny wells that are isolated and success-fully trap the oil. The ring and liner are thus prevented from con-tact by riding on these tiny droplets, resulting in micro-hydrodynamic lubrication.

Lasers are already well established tools in many aspects of automotive manufacturing. Previously, their primary benefit has been to lower production costs through increased process speed, automation, and consistency. These results for excimer-laser-based nitridation of diesel cylinder liners indicate their important role as the industry strives for ever “greener” cars.

The friction between the piston rings and iron cylinder liners in diesel engines can account for up to 60% of the total engine frictional loss. Reduc-ing this friction can improve fuel efficiency and decrease long-term wear, which can reduce oil consumption and particulate emissions.

In this context, engineers at Coherent, SMS Elotherm, and Audi AG have jointly developed a new laser-based technique for treating the surface of diesel cylinder liners that produces unique low-friction surface conditions. Wear tests at Audi have proven the usefulness of this ultraviolet laser nitridation process, which may have important implications for future diesel development.

The new process is quite different from the exist-ing use of infrared lasers for surface hardening, and is based on an ultraviolet excimer laser and nitrogen-assist gas. The short wavelength 308nm, high-energy photons from the excimer laser inter-act directly with the inter-atom­ic bonds that bind materials together, thus allowing the atoms to move freely.

In the laser nitridation process, an engine block is positioned in a purpose-built workstation incor-porating an excimer laser - the Lambda SX high power excimer laser series. Beam-delivery optics direct the beam at the cylinder wall and scan the wall along the length of the cylinder. The engine block is rotated during the process to expose the entire inner surface of the cylinder liner. A nitro-gen-assist gas is applied during laser irradiation.

Extensive testing was conducted on a four-cylinder turbodiesel direct injection (TDI) en-gine displacing 1.9 L. Additional studies were performed on a V6 diesel engine. The four-cylinder TDI engine was run on dynamic test beds for 602hours using standard endurance protocols designed to simulate multiple duty cycles. In addition, wear tests were conducted under constant rpm conditions at several different rpm values. Engine performance was moni-tored throughout all these tests. To understand how the laser treatment causes improvements, engineers also took SEM (scanning electron microscopy) images to examine the surface topol-

Excimer Laser Treatment for Super ior Diesel Eng ines

PAGE 3

ISSUE 2

An excimer laser based work-station, shown here schemati-cally, was custom-built for the laser nitridation process used on engine block liners.

Scanning electronic microscope photographs of liner surface topography show (left) surface after conventional mechanical honing - note criss-crossing groove texture; and (right) the same surface after excimer laser treatment.

Article Courtesy: Ralph Delmdahl, Burkhard Fechner, Coherent GmbH, Germany

A-454, TTC Industrial Area MIDC, Mahape, Navi Mumbai 400 701

Phone: 91-22-41553232 Fax: 91-22-2778 1672

E-mail: sales@laserscience.in www.laserscience.co.in

Incepted in 1988 by Dr. Lalit Kumar, Laser Science is In-dia's premier distributor of lasers and spectroscopy instru-ments. Our range of products covers scientific and indus-trial laser systems, spectroscopy, microscopy & imaging systems. We distribute over 30 major brands that are repu-table global market leaders in their respective fields. Our extensive customer coverage includes R&D institutions and commercial & industrial organizations all over India.

Our strategic focus is on continuously exceeding customer expectations, a commitment to quality, proactive market development and providing the most superior quality cus-tomer service.

Headquartered in Navi Mumbai , Laser Science has regional sales offices in Chennai, Delhi & Kolkata.

L A S E R S C I E N C E S E R V I C E S ( I ) P V T . L T D .

with Steep Edges Within a 100nm Wide Spec-tral Window. The filter has high transmission and exceptional blocking characteristics outside each of the eleven bands. The unmatched spectral complexity of this 11-band filter was designed specifically to match the corresponding formaldehyde fluorescence emission spikes over the 380-480nm wavelength range. The filter can be utilized in investigating homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) type combus-tion processes. PCO Expands its PCO.dimax High Speed Se-ries by Two New Models

Both cameras will be available as monochrome ver-sions with the following resolutions and frame rates:

pco.dimax HS2: 5469 fps @ 1400 x 1050 pixel

pco.dimax HS4: 2277 fps @ 2000 x 2000 pixel

Femtolasers Produktions GmBH launches Octave spanning GDD module MOSAIC™ OS

MOSAIC™ OS can support pulse durations below 4 fs. The employed dispersive mirrors exhibit high reflectance over a bandwidth of 600 nm between 400 nm and 1000 nm and controlled group delay disper-sion (GDD) over more than one optical octave, be-tween 450 nm and 960 nm.

The New Flare, a Compact, Pulsed Laser from Coherent, Inc.

The Flare series provides a superior and cost-effective alternative to older gas lasers and first-generation solid-state lasers for life sciences and instrumentation applications. It has three wave-length versions available - near infrared (1064 nm), green (532 nm) and ultraviolet (355 nm). Specifically Flare’s shorter pulsewidth (< 2 ns versus 4 ns for the N2 laser) translates directly into superior time of flight (ToF) resolution. Its higher pulse repetition frequency of 1 kHz (versus <100 Hz for a N2 laser) reduces data acquisition times by an order of magnitude.

Coherent, Inc. Introduces a New Series of Sapphire™ Lasers

A new series of Sapphire™ lasers, at 594 nm are ideal for fluorescence-based applications in life sciences. Based on Coherent’s unique optically pumped semiconductor laser (OPSL) technology, these new Sapphire™ 594 lasers offer superior performance, reliability, efficiency and value compared to older technologies.

Semrock Proudly Announces the Produc-tion of the World’s First 11-band Filter

Newly Launched Products

B R I N G I N G T O M O R R O W ’ S T E C H N O L O G Y T O D A Y

Coherent’s new FLARE series of lasers

Femtolasers Produktions’ MOSAIC™ OS

PCO.dimax high speed series