Deep-UV supercontinuum-powered laser from NKT Photonics

17 Jul 2013

NKT Photonics, the pioneer of supercontinuum white light lasers, will demonstrate the World’s first tunable deep-UV supercontinuum-powered light source at this year’s LASER World of Photonics show in Munich. The new SuperK EXTEND-UV wavelength extension unit provides tunable light in the entire 270-400nm range with power levels on the order of 10-100 μW. The deep-UV range is important for many applications like intrinsic fluorescence from e.g. proteins as well as UV excitable probes. The collimated output enables tight focusing and the fast pulses, down to 20 ps in length with variable MHzrange repetition rate, make it ideal for lifetime measurements and studies of ultrafast photochemical processes.

The SuperK EXTEND-UV is a paradigm shift in UV light sources. Like large solid state lasers, it provides tunability and short pulses but at a fraction of the cost and with the robustness and reliability of fiber lasers. Compared to UV LEDs, the supercontinuum-powered EXTEND-UV provides superior wavelength coverage, beam quality, tunability and pulses that are an order of magnitude shorter.

“We are very excited about showing this new deep-UV source at LASER as it combines many of the best features of the different existing UV sources on the market into a single robust and reliable fiber laser that is very cost effective compared to e.g. Ti:Sapphire solutions” says Christian Poulsen, CTO of NKT Photonics.

To further enhance the usability of the SuperK EXTEND-UV, the unit features supercontinuum pass-through ports enabling the user to access the entire spectrum (400-2400nm) from the SuperK EXTREME for other experiments. In this way, the SuperK EXTEND-UV can act as a hub in a multi-experiment environment, where the different parts of the spectrum is routed to the different setups through the unique SuperK CONNECT broadband fiber delivery system.

The SuperK EXTEND-UV is already being picked up by the photonics industry; Hamamatsu Photonics is integrating the system with their sub-picosecond resolution STREAK cameras to create an ultra fast fluorescence lifetime measurement setup capable of capturing time resolved spectra with unprecedented sensitivity and speed.