Zecotek Photonics Inc. (TSX-V: ZMS; Frankfurt: W1I), a developer of leading-edge photonics technologies for medical, industrial and scientific markets, today released a White Paper on its patent-pending visible spectrum fiber laser technology. The White Paper addresses results from government and industry testing as well as new developments in Zecotek’s fiber laser program which offer additional commercial potential. The paper identifies these new areas and provides detail on performance and testing results.
“The Zecotek fiber laser technology represents a significant breakthrough in extending both the range and utility of lasers used in industrial and medical applications, in particular biomedical instrumentation for confocal microscopy and flow cytometry,” said Dr. A.F. Zerrouk, Chairman, President, and CEO of Zecotek Photonics Inc. “By extending the range and utility of visible spectrum fiber lasers we can accommodate significant new markets with our laser technologies.”
Solid-state lasers have long established themselves as the most common coherent light sources in the instrumentation and research fields, even though other approaches, such as optically pumped semiconductor lasers (OPSL) or directly doubled diode lasers have been introduced, and where older types of laser sources, such as gas lasers, are also still widely used in bio-medical applications. However, with the exception of OPSL, conventional lasers in use are limited to a fixed set of available wavelengths, with a notable gap around the green-yellow range, a range particularly important in biotech and medical uses.
Fiber lasers are now a promising alternative. In addition to being generally more robust and efficient, they have a broad continuous range of output wavelength that can be tailored to specific applications, with the possibility of continuously tuneable laser output within wide spectral ranges.
Zecotek’s unique, patent-pending approach to fiber lasers provides for an attractive performance/cost ratio advantage because they are generally more robust and efficient and have a broad continuous range of output wavelength that can be tailored to specific applications.
Zecotek lasers offer a range of parameters, which include higher reliability, provisions for various power levels (0.25–1W) and various wavelengths in the green range (515–560 nm), with a focus on the lines of 540, 550, 560 nm (where the 515–560 nm range is important in medical applications). Other options include continuous tuneability with up to 20-nm, multi-wavelength, broad-band, and narrow-band, as well as single-frequency in the wider visible range. Pulsed operation, wider wavelength tuning, and the expansion of the available wavelength range into the red and blue spectra, are also in development.