Laser Sc ience Partners Four New Princ ipal s f rom Around the Globe

Newly Launched Prod-

ucts:

• Coherent’s Fidelity 1055 - 2, a High Power Fem-tosecond Fiber Laser

• PCO’s new PCO.Edge gold 5.5 sCMOS camera

• Hinds Instruments’ all new Exicor Micro Imager

• Coherent’s Astrella - the next generation Ultrafast Ti: Sapphire amplifier

Inside this issue:

Semrock Announces an Industry-leading Ten

2

Beneq wins Tekes Com-mercialization Break-through award

2

THz Laser Chip Sets Power Records

2

Research Paper: Sensitive trace gas detection using a continuous wave quan-tum cascade laser

3

Br ing ing Tomorrow’s Technology to Indian Labs

In the last 3 months, Laser Science has installed a num-ber of new systems across various labs in India. The most recent of these is Excimer Laser ComPex Pro 102F from Coherent GmbH at the National Center for Nano-Science and Technology, Mumbai in February 2014. Another prestigious installation was that of the Com-Pex Pro 205F from Coherent GmbH at TIFR Mumbai, in January 2014 . In November 2013, Coherent’s Excimer Laser Com-Pex Pro 201F was installed at DIAT, Pune and Neo-cera’s Pioneer 180 PED System, was installed at the University of Mumbai.

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 . MAR 2014

ISSUE 4

Laser Science closed its silver jubilee year, with four new

partners from different parts of the globe, whom the

company will exclusively represent in India. These in-

clude EOT (Electro-Optics Technology, Inc.) from USA,

LIOP-TEC from Germany, Daylight Solutions from USA

and Zomega Terahertz Corporation.

Dr. Lalit Kumar, Managing Director of Laser Science, said, “Keeping in line with our vision of bringing the most futuristic technology to India, and with a view to help the laser and photonics industry in our country grow, we are proud to associate ourselves with both young and experi-enced global players, who bring a wide range of unique expertise, products and technological solutions, to our industry.”

EOT is a 22yr old player, which specifically focuses on

OEM and custom applications, working closely with

customers from the beginning of the customer’s project,

all the way through to production. Current products

include Faraday rotators/isolators and fiber collimators

for use with laser diodes, fiber lasers and solid-state la-

sers; and photo detectors used to monitor the output of

pulsed, mode-locked and externally modulated CW

lasers.

LIOPTEC Gmbh is a young player founded in Germany, in the year 2012 by Dr. Jurgen Lindener, who has over 20yrs of experience in lasers and Dr. Michael Gutmann

who was formerly, the head of a re-search group in physical chemistry focusing on applying lasers to solving problems in molecular science. LIOP-TEC primarily deals in pulse dye la-sers, OPOs and opto-mechanics. Dye lasers can be pumped using ns Nd:YAG lasers and excimer lasers.

Daylight Solutions was founded in January 2005 with a purpose of ad-vancing Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL) technology for commercial, medical, and defense applications. In 2010, Daylight Solu-tions created Daylight Defense, a wholly owned subsidiary, which quickly became the world leader in advanced, mid-infrared laser systems for defense applications. Today, Day-light Defense continues to increase its involvement in ad-vanced laser-based systems for protecting personnel in com-bat, by manufacturing products for the defense department .

Zomega Terahertz Corporation was formed in 2005 to commercialize recent advances in terahertz technology, with a mission to deliver complete THz systems and solutions to industry, academia and public sector custom-ers. Zomega deals in both pre-designed and custom sys-tems for time-domain spectroscopy, inspection and non-destructive testing; and CW applications in both point measurement and imaging modalities, with true turnkey operation and integration into larger systems requiring THz capabilities.

Dr. Lalit Kumar, Managing Director, Laser Science.

Tomorrow Today - A Laser Science Newsletter

Neocera’s Pioneer 180 PED Chamber, at the University of Mumbai

Semrock, Inc., recently announced that it is extending its long-standing five-year warranty to an industry-leading ten-year. This warranty continues to guarantee that all optical filters shipped from Semrock will consistently meet the published performance specifications when used under normal operating conditions. With over one million optical filters shipped, Semrock confidently extends the warranty, further setting the standard for reliable optical filters.

Semrock warrants that its optical filters will meet their stated specifications under normal use for ten years from the date of sale.

Semrock Announces an Industry-lead ing Ten Year Warranty

THz Laser Chip Sets Power Records

PAGE 2

TOMORROW TODAY - A LASER SCIENCE NEWSLETTER

LEEDS, England, Feb. 19, 2014 — A newly devel-oped terahertz laser chip is already setting records as the most powerfu l in the wor ld. A team from the University of Leeds has engineered a quantum cascade terahertz laser that exceeds 1-W output power, more than doubling landmarks set previously by the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy and, more recently, by researchers in Vienna. Terahertz waves can penetrate materials that block visible light and have applications ranging from chemical analysis to security. However, a main chal-lenge is making the lasers powerful and compact enough to be useful. The lasers developed at Leeds are a few square millimeters in size. “Although it is possible to build large instruments that generate powerful beams of terahertz radiation, these instruments are only useful for a limited set of applications,” said Edmund Linfield, professor of terahertz electronics at the university’s School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. The researchers developed multilayer semiconduc-tors such as gallium arsenide one atomic monolayer

at a time. They controlled the thickness and composition of each individual layer and created s em ic onduc t o r materials between 1000 and 2000 layers thick, Lin-field said, which resulted in the new laser chip’s record power. Potential applica-tions for the tiny chip include monitoring pharmaceutical products, remote sensing of chemical signatures of explosives in unopened envelopes, telecommunications, and noninva-sive detection of cancers in the human body. The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and has been published in Electronics Letters. (doi: 10.1049/el.2013.4035)

A computer-generated image of the

world's most powerful THz laser, devel-oped by the University of Leeds. Courtesy

University of Leeds.

On Wednesday, 11 December 2013, Beneq received a special commercialization breakthrough award from Tekes, the Finnish funding agency for technology and innovation, as part of its six-year-long functional materials program. The goal of the program was to promote the development of application-focused materials and processes, as well as to raise foreign in-vestor awareness of Finland’s exceptionally high level of mate-rial expertise.

Beneq was selected for the commercialization breakthrough award thanks to the company’s outstanding work on two par-ticular commercialized projects: Transparent Conductive Ox-ide (TCO) for aerosol applications and Roll-to-Roll Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD).

Beneq Wins Tekes Commerc ia l i zat ion Breakthrough Award

Quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) discovered in the early 90’s represent a novel and non-traditional approach to generating radiation in the mid-infrared (MIR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum by employing a periodic superlattice. Unlike semiconductor lasers, it is possible to achieve one-dimensional quantum-well confinement in such structures as a result of which, QCLs are capable of generating very high power outputs. More importantly, they offer the key advantage of tunability over a wide range of wavelengths without having to switch to different material systems in order to do so. As a result of these unique features, QCLs are well suited for high resolution spectroscopy applications wherein MIR radia-tion is required to excite molecular species of interest. One such application is the detection of trace gas molecules. In order to achieve highly selective and sensitive detection of gas molecules down to the ppb limit, it is essential to couple an excita-tion source such as a QCL, with a spectroscopy technique that is capable of enhancing the effective optical path length of ra-diation, far beyond that which is defined by the dimensions of the system. In their work, J. H. van Helden et al. report on the use of a simple cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy (CEAS) sensor that uses a continuous wave external-cavity (EC) QCL operating at 7.4 microns. Figure 1 shows a schematic of the experimental setup that was used in van Helden’s study. The water-cooled EC-QCL pur-chased from Daylight Solutions, was tunable in the 1300–1445 cm-1 region and included a mode-hop free range of 1345–1400cm-1. The output power of this system was in excess of 80 mW over the entire working range and the maximum achiev-able output power was found to be 150 mW. The CEAS cavity obtained from Los Gatos Research Inc., consisted of two highly reflective mirrors positioned 32 cm apart with a specified reflectivity of greater than 95% over the whole working range of the laser. To establish a benchmark for the sensitivity that can be realized using this system, the authors attempt to detect trace concen-trations of methane (CH4) in air. As can be seen in Figure 2, the integrated CEAS signal as a function of the CH4concentra-tion in air samples of different total pressures is plotted. The authors also note that the QCL used in this study can be tailored to perform consistently outside the mode-hop free area by tuning either the temperature or the current of the laser in order to avoid mode-hops in the spectra. In conclusion, this study successfully highlights the promising potential of QCL based CEAS and that of QCLs in general, for gas detection applications. The demonstrated detection limit of 6 parts per billion and effective optical path length of 1780m are among the highest metrics reported to date using such a system.

Research Paper: Sens i t ive trace gas detect ion us ing a continuous wave quantum cascade laser

PAGE 3

ISSUE 4

Further information regarding this work can be found in the following journal article: J. H. van Hel-den, N. Lang, U. Macherius, H. Zimmermann, and J. Ropcke, App. Phys. Lett.,103 1131114 (2013).

Figure 1 Figure 2

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 36 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 .

Hinds Instruments announces the all new Exicor Micro Imager

Hinds Instruments has applied the power & versatility of the Photo Elastic Modula-tors (PEM) to produce the Birefringence Imaging Microscope - The Exicor® Mi-croImager. This offers researchers in academia and industry the ability to evalu-ate birefringence of both biological and industrial materials. With a digital resolu-tion of 0.01nm, a detection limit (noise floor) of 0.1 nm and a measurement range of beyond 300nm (using red light), this new instrument offers quick and reliable measurements in an integrated system package that in-cludes camera, optics, electronics, sample stage hardware and soft-ware.

Coherent announces the launch of its all new Astrella, the next generation Ultrafast Ti: Sapphire amplifier

Astrella, the next generation one-box, Ti:Sapphire amplifier, com-bines market-leading performance with industrial reliability. It is specified to provide >6 mJ pulse energy at 1 kHz, 800 nm in a near transform-limited, sub-35 fs pulse width. The integrated, one-box design employs the new STAR regenerative amplifier module for increased energy, beam quality and stability. Its applications include time-resolved spectroscopy, multi-dimensional spectroscopy, THz spectroscopy and fs micromachining, among others.

Coherent Inc, USA launches the all new high power femto-second fiber laser—The Fidelity 1055 - 2 Fidelity is a revolutionary ultrafast fiber laser that offers a unique combi-nation of high average power and extremely short pulses in a simple to operate, maintenance free & compact package. Its features include, the shortest specified pulse length from a commercial fiber laser, high average power >2W, compact foot print, air cooled, R - 232 interface and many more. It can be used in time re-solved, non-linear spectroscopy; Multi Photon Excitation (MPE) mi-croscopy; optogenetic microscopy; terahertz generation, super contin-uum generation, amplifier seeding, etc.

PCO launches the new PCO.Edge gold 5.5

A breakthrough in scientific imaging cameras, due to its distinctive ability to simultaneously deliver extremely low noise, good frame rates, wide dynamic range, high quantum effi-ciency, high resolution and large field of view - all in one image. Its key fea-tures include quantum efficiency of image sensor >60% , spectral range of camera : 370nm - 1100nm, camera pixel scan rate : 86.0 MHz and camera non linearity <0.6%. It is best used in the fields of astronomy, live cell microscopy, localization microscopy, photovoltaic inspection, high content screening, biological & chemical luminescence and flow cytometry, among others.

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

Fidelity 1055-2 from Coherent Inc, USA

PCO.edge Gold 5.5

CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE!CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE!CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE!CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE!

Hinds Instruments’ Exicor MicroImager

Astrella by Coherent