Photonic Products laser blog

Pb-Free Laser suits high-power RGB white light sources.

Designed as single longitudinal mode semiconductor laser diode with TE mode oscillation, Opnext HL6385DG offers 150 mW optical output power at 642 nm wavelength.

Aspect ratio of less than 2:1, coupled with 3 x 1 µm emitting chip size, allows efficient combination of multiple diodes in high-power RGB white light sources.

Registered with FDA, this RoHS-compliant solution has output optimized for clarity and visibility.

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Laser sensors for wind turbines

A new fiber-optic laser system can measure wind speed and direction up to 1000 meters in front of a wind turbine, giving the massive machines enough precious seconds to proactively adapt to gusts and sudden changes in wind direction. The device, developed by Catch the Wind, a startup based in Manassas, VA, could improve the efficiency of wind turbines and keep them from breaking down.

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Fighting with photons

The most famous weapon of science fiction is rapidly becoming fact.

Like so much else in science fiction, the ray gun was invented by H.G. Wells. In the tentacles of Wells’s Martians it was a weapon as unanswerable by earthlings as the Maxim gun in the hands of British troops was unanswerable by Africans.

Science fiction, though, it has remained. Neither hand-held pistols nor giant, orbiting anti-missile versions of the weapon have worked. But that is about to change.

The first serious battlefield ray gun is now being deployed. And the next generation, now in the laboratory, is coming soon.

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