nLIGHT Ships Industry Leading Brightness from Pearl™ Diode Modules for Next Generation Fiber Laser Pumps

Vancouver, WA USA  April 2, 2009

 Efficient coupling of 100 W in 6.5 mm-mrad delivered

nLIGHT has delivered initial units of the highest brightness ever achieved from a fiber-coupled diode laser to development partners.  nLIGHT Pearl fiber-coupled diode lasers produce up to 100 Watts of 976 nanometer light from a 105 micron core fiber at an excitation numerical aperture of 0.12. with a resulting beam product of 6.5 mm-mrad of cladding-free light.  The high-power Pearl module is compact (< 100 cm2) and is optimized to meet performance, cost, and reliability demands for the growing fiber laser pump and direct materials processing markets.  A general release of this new and enabling performance level is planned for later this year.

“In addition to high brightness, Pearl overall wall-plug efficiencies exceed 50%,” stated Robert Martinsen, nLIGHT VP of Product Development.  “That brightness and efficiency, coupled with industry-leading compact size, cost, power consumption, thermal management and long-term reliability, establishes nLIGHT’s Pearl product series as the most compelling line of high brightness diode lasers in the industry.”

The nLIGHT Pearl product series is based on multiple issued patents and includes nLIGHT’s proprietary nXLT™ single emitter diodes that are resetting reliability and efficiency benchmarks for high-power, fiber-coupled diode lasers. More information on the released Pearl products is available at www.nlight.net

About nLIGHT Corporation
nLIGHT is a leading supplier of innovative high-power semiconductor lasers and high-performance specialty optical fibers for industrial, medical, defense and consumer applications. nLIGHT partners with customers to provide advantages in performance, reliability and efficiency. Global support is provided through state-of-the-art manufacturing and application centers in North America, Europe, and Asia. (www.nlight.net)