Thorlabs buys new product line from Lake Shore Cryotronics

http://www.njherald.com/story/24748418/2014/02/18/thorlabs-buys-new-product-line

NEWTON — Thorlabs has purchased a new product line, which will assist in the company’s growth in supplying equipment for the study and use of energy in the terahertz range.

The purchase was from Lake Shore Cryotronics Inc. and includes the Terahertz Optical Filter line, which will be manufactured at the Thorlabs facility in Jessup, Md.

Thorlabs founder and president Alex Cable said, however, some of the products will be brought to the Newton facility where they will become part of larger pieces of equipment.

“This (purchase) further solidifies our place in the terahertz range,” Cable said.

In the range of light, there is the range of light that humans can see, and above that is the infrared range. Terahertz is the range above infrared.

The filters are made to withstand cryogenic (very cold) temperatures, as well as cycling between temperatures, high gamma radiation vibrations and vacuum pressure cycles, and are designed to reject out-of-band radiation and other destructive interference.

Thin metal films are patterned with geometric holes and based on the size and features of the pattern. The material will resonate with some frequencies and reject others.

The filters are used in research of the high-frequency radiation as well as in other processes that use that range of wavelengths and need to filter out other frequencies.

Lakeshore is a leading global innovator in measurement and control solutions, and was founded in 1968.

Thorlabs, which was founded in 1989 and has its global headquarters in Newton, manufacture equipment used in the photonics industry. As that industry — the study and use of light — has grown, the company has also expanded its role at the research end of the business as well as found inroads into the use of light at the industrial, life science, medical and defense applications.