Oclaro Unveils Brightest and Most Powerful Conductively Cooled Laser Diode Bars at Photonics West

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Oclaro, Inc. (Nasdaq: OCLR), a leading provider of optical components for industrial applications, will be showcasing a new 80 Watt 20% fill-factor bar and 50 W 18%FF "half-bar" at the Photonics West trade show in San Francisco, CA. These new conductively cooled laser diode bars deliver very-high brightness in the 9xx nm to 10xx nm range, simplifying the design and reducing the overall costs for equipment in multi-kilowatt high brightness direct diode applications, fiber laser pumping, medical and industrial manufacturing applications.

"Oclaro continues to lead the industry on brightness and power due to our exceptional design and a deep understanding of the systems-level," said Yves LeMaitre, Executive VP and Division Manager for Oclaro.  "By offering an unparalleled combination of brightness, high-power and cost-savings in our laser diode bars, we believe our customers will deliver a new generation of advanced direct diode systems, fiber laser pumps and medical products."

Leveraging Oclaro's unique expertise in epitaxial design and mounting technology, the company was able to reduce the filling factor of the 80 W bar from 30% to 20%, while maintaining the output power of 80 W and increasing the brightness by 50%.  The 50 W "half-bar" delivers even greater brightness and due to the reduced bar width, can offer much smaller smile values well below 1um.  Both products are conductively cooled mounted with hard solder on a CS-type assembly.

These new high brightness laser diode bars allow manufacturers to couple the diodes to smaller fibers, and work with less stringent tolerances for alignment of their beam shaping optics. The diode bars reduce fiber-coupling losses by enabling smaller spot sizes, which increases overall efficiency and has a positive impact on cooling requirements for fiber couplers and system.  As a consequence, system complexity is minimized and system cost is decreased as customers are able to create smaller and more compact systems that leverage industry standard components and automated processes.

About the 80 W and 50 W Half Bars

The new Oclaro laser diode bars are conductively cooled on an industry standard CS type assembly that is fully compatible to previously released products. Both newly released products reach conversion efficiencies greater than 60% at their operation points of 50 W and 80 W, making them very power efficient and saving costs related to power and heat management. The extraordinary small slow axis divergence and their small emitter width make them perfectly suited for fiber coupling and beam shaping application in single and multi-bar configurations. The wide wavelength range from 910 nm to 1070 nm enables wavelength combining for power scaling to multi-kilowatt levels.

Similar to all Oclaro high power laser products, the front facet of the bar is protected against Catastrophic Optical Damage by the Oclaro E2 mirror passivation process.  Telecom grade AuSn (gold tin) hard solder makes the product suitable for demanding industrial and defense applications in CW and hard-pulse operation mode.

Oclaro's Presence at Photonics West and LASE 2010:

Oclaro will be showcasing its new high-power laser diodes at Photonics West (booth #1101.)  The company will also be presenting the following five technical papers at the associated Symposium LASE 2010:

1. 'CW to QCW power scaling of high-power laser bars'
2. 'Eye safe high-power laser diode in the 1410-1550 nm range'
3. 'Reliable operation of 8xx mini-bar-based hermetic modules'
4. 'Extending the wavelength range in the Oclaro high-brightness broad area modules'
5. 'Novel single-mode fiber coupled broadband seed source for pulsed fiber laser systems'

About Oclaro

Oclaro, Inc., with headquarters in San Jose, Calif., is a tier-one provider of high-performance optical components, modules and subsystems to the telecommunications market, and is one of the largest providers to metro and long-haul network applications. The company, formed on April 27, 2009 following the combination of Bookham, Inc. and Avanex Corporation, leverages proprietary core technologies and vertically integrated product development to provide its customers with cost-effective and innovative optical devices, modules and subsystems.  Oclaro serves a broad customer base, combining in-house and outsourced manufacturing to maximize flexibility and drive improved gross margin. Its photonic technologies also serve selected high-growth markets, including industrial, defense, life sciences, medical and scientific, with diversification providing both significant revenue streams and strategic technological advantage.  The company also provides a complete family of wavelength selective switches (WSS) capable of powering reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) applications over the entire optical network, from the edge to the core.

Oclaro is a global company, with cutting-edge chip fabrication facilities in the U.K., Switzerland and Italy, and in Tucson, Ariz. during the transition of related activities to Europe, and manufacturing sites in the U.S., Thailand and China.

Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Oclaro, the Oclaro logo and certain other Oclaro trademarks and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Oclaro, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the US and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Information in this product release is subject to change without notice.

Editor Notes:

1. Photonics West will take place January 23-28, 2010, in San Francisco, Calif.
2. Oclaro will be exhibiting at the Photonics West exhibition at booth #1101
3. To arrange an interview with representatives of Oclaro before or during the show, please contact Erika Powelson at +1 (408) 332-5877 or [email protected]

SOURCE Oclaro, Inc.