APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC. CREATES RECORD BREAKING LASER
SUGAR LAND, TX - Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (AOI), a semiconductor laser manufacturer based in Sugar Land, TX has created record-breaking high-efficiency mid-infrared (IR) lasers. The lasers are expected to enable new devices to improve the quality of life for America s 16.8 million diabetics, as well as improving other areas of medical diagnosis and sensitive detection of chemicals. The lasers were developed with the support of the Air Force Research Laboratory s Directed Energy Directorate and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization s Small Business Innovation and Research program. The development is an outgrowth of research originally conducted at the University of Houston s (UH) Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center. The lasers, called interband cascade lasers, have achieved an efficiency as high as 580%, meaning that every electron that is injected into the laser creates on average nearly 6 photons out. Conventional laser designs can emit a maximum of one photon per injected electron. This high laser efficiency is believed to be the highest ever reported for this type of laser. Dr. Thompson Lin, founder and President of Applied Optoelectronics predicts many groundbreaking commercial applications for the high-efficiency laser, "The interband cascade laser represents a real technological breakthrough that will enable compact and efficient devices for performing chemical leak detection in refineries and gas pipelines, process control in factories and chemical plants, and monitoring environmental air quality, as well as a host of other applications."
By making the laser more efficient, output powers tens of times higher than earlier semiconductor mid-infrared lasers has been achieved. This high output power will in turn allow much more sensitive detection at greater distances from potentially hazardous chemical leaks. In addition, Dr. Lin predicts that many medical diagnostic techniques can be improved by the use of the new laser, "By using laser technology, we believe that blood glucose monitoring, a fact of life for the world s hundreds of millions of diabetics, can be done non-invasively, without requiring the patient to draw blood. Many other medically important chemical compounds such as blood oxygen level and carbon dioxide in the breath can best be monitored by laser techniques, as well." The laser is based on an unusual material system developed by AOI. The company uses Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) to grow large laser crystals out of alternating, very thin layers of indium arsenide (InAs), aluminum antimonide (AlSb), and indium gallium antimonide (InGaSb). Computer design programs, developed by AOI and UH allowed researchers to take advantage of a novel property of this material system, it s type-II band alignment, to enable more than 100% quantum efficiency, while still maintaining very low laser threshold current. The new laser is available for use in prototype systems, where it currently requires cooling to low temperature, near that of liquid nitrogen. Efforts are under way to increase the operating temperature of the laser and further increase its efficiency.
CONTACT:
Stefan J. Murry, Ph. D.
PHONE (713) 743-3497
EMAIL smurry@ao-inc.com
WWW: www.ao-inc.com
Stefan J. Murry, Ph. D.
PHONE (713) 743-3497
EMAIL smurry@ao-inc.com
WWW: www.ao-inc.com
E-mail: smurry@ao-inc.com
Web site: http://www.ao-inc.com
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