Pranalytica Inc. recently announced the introduction of the two-watt, fully packaged, continuous wave, room temperature quantum cascade laser (QCL) system, marking a breakthrough advancement in the development of Directional Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM) systems for commercial and military aircraft.
Model 1101-40 emits at a wavelength of 4.0 microns. Pranalytica previously announced a two-watt version of its Model 1101-46 QCL system operating at a wavelength of 4.6 microns.
With the availability of the shorter wavelength mid-infrared QCL system, Pranalytica said it is the only commercial supplier able to provide a complete solution for the 3.8 to 4.8 micron band laser sources based on semiconductor lasers needed for the protection of aircraft from Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS).
“Pranalytica continues its technical leadership through development of a second key component of highly effective, reliable and affordable countermeasures systems for military and commercial aircraft defense applications,” said C. Kumar N. Patel, president and CEO of Pranalytica at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), in San Jose, Calif. “This rapid technological advancement represents a significant leap forward in meeting the needs of our aerospace, defense and homeland security customers and puts Pranalytica in the unique position as the only supplier of mid-wave infrared (MWIR) semiconductor laser-based solutions for affordable countermeasures against MANPADS.
“Our customers now have a complete MWIR solution that provides primary, electrically pumped semiconductor lasers operating at room temperature without the need of cryogenic or even water cooling, covering the 3.8 to 4.8 micron spectral band,” Patel said.
Since June 2009, Pranalytica has supplied a number of two-watt versions of its QCL system, operating in the longer-wavelength red sub-band of the 3.8-4.8 micron spectrum to the majority of tier-one aerospace and defense contractors, the company said in a statement.
Until Pranalytica’s advance, application engineers had to use laser sources other than primary semiconductor lasers for covering the critical region of the spectrum between 3.8 and 4.2 microns blue for infrared countermeasures.
The new two-watt, 4.0 micron version of the room temperature operation QCL system maintains the same output beam quality of earlier Pranalytica systems in the red band, and offers lower cost per watt. The two-watt system is a turnkey solution and fully lab tested with several thousand hours of in-house testing time. The laser package is hermetically sealed for reliable operation in adverse environments and the laser output is collimated using an internal lens system.
In addition to DIRCM, Pranalytica’s two-watt QCL systems in the blue and the red bands of the 3.8 to 4.8 micron spectrum may be used to enhance various other applications such as light detection and ranging (LIDAR) and free-space optical communications.