SuperLight Photonics’ portable wideband laser

Its high-quality smooth wide spectral output offers an unrivalled light source for industrial and medical imaging applications and for the dynamic world of spectroscopy.

Supercontinuum lasers, also known as wideband lasers, provide immense bandwidth while maintaining high coherence and low noise. However, today’s industrial solutions are large and heavy, with limited environmental robustness, and require high power. Moreover, while they deliver a wide bandwidth of colours, a dominant colour usually stands out, whereas the remaining colours are at exceedingly low relative power levels. Essentially, they are “wideband” by technicality.

The new SuperLight Photonics SLP-1000 is a portable wideband laser with a compact, battery-operated, and rugged design, weighing only 900 grams (32 oz) and having a form factor of less than 1 litre (<1 dm^3).

The SLP-1000, based on PAD - Patterned Alternating Dispersion, 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 global supplier of instrumentation for high-precision photonics metrology. The laser output is equipped with a Thorlabs-compatible screw thread (SM05), seamlessly integrating with other products from Thorlabs, a global designer and manufacturer of photonics laser equipment.

The short pulse duration of around 20fs, achieved with the SLP-1000, is also a testament to the advantages of having highly efficient SC generators. In comparison to alternative products, lower pulse energies can be used at the input of these devices; thus pulse broadening needed for amplification, noise from amplifier stages, and additional optical components can be eliminated. SLP-1000 then provides high-quality nonlinear pulse compression for application fields such as third harmonic surface imaging and transient absorption spectroscopy.

Haider Zia, the visionary 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."