Date: Jan 15, 2008 Source: ARMY SBIR Success Story (
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The Army has a need for spectrally tailored high-efficiency long wave pumps for lasers that generate an output near 1550 nm, which is at least 5 orders of magnitude less harmful to the eye. In response to this need, QPC Lasers, Inc. developed a patented and proprietary high-brightness chip-based laser technology with the potential to reduce the size, cost, and weight of lasers by as much as ten times, while significantly improving their energy efficiency and portability.
Current lasers can be pumped by short-wave diodes but generate too much wasted power in the laser crystal due to the large quantum defect. These lasers can also be pumped using conventional long-wavelength pumps; however, these pumps produce an output with low power, short broad line width, poor brightness, and only wall-plug efficiency. To circumvent the serious shortcomings of conventional long-wave pump diodes for eye-safe laser use, QPC designed and implemented laser diode technologies that enable the long wave pumps to attain the performance of high slope efficiency at high power and spectrally narrowed high power emission.
Currently, QPC's lasers are being used globally in the development of next generation laser-based HD-TV, cancer treatment, and laser weapons.
QPC believes its technology will permit it to capture significant market shares in these multi-billion dollar markets in the coming years. These technologies have been successfully applied to the design of several QPC commercial products for pumping eye-safe lasers that emit radiation with much less serious ocular hazards. Products include BrightLock Ultra-100 at 1532 nm, BrightLock Ultra-500 at 1532 nm, and BrightLock Stacked Arrays.
Phase III Impacts:
QPC receives significant revenues from defense contracts and defense customers. Various defense prime contractors and Army Research Laboratory have purchased the 1532-nm fiber-coupled modules and micro-channel cooled stacks for pumping eye-safe solid-state lasers. These fiber-coupled modules and stacked arrays increase pumping efficiency, reduce thermal requirements of systems, and eliminate costly external optical components for pumping high energy eye-safe lasers. There has been over $430K in commercial sales of these products.
