EMCORE Announces Closing of Sale of its Tunable Laser and Transceiver Product Lines to NeoPhotonics Corporation for $17.5 Million

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/emcore-announces-closing-sale-tunable-130100936.html

ALHAMBRA, Calif., Jan. 5, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EMCORE Corporation (EMKR), a leading provider of compound semiconductor-based components and subsystems for the broadband and specialty fiber optics market, today announced that it completed the previously announced sale of its tunable laser and transceiver product lines to NeoPhotonics Corporation (NPTN). In connection with the closing of the transaction, EMCORE received $1.5 million in cash and a promissory note from NeoPhotonics in the principal amount of $16 million. The promissory note will mature two years from the closing date of the transaction, subject to repayments under certain circumstances, and is secured by certain of the assets sold to NeoPhotonics in the transaction. The purchase price is subject to certain post-closing adjustments for inventory, net accounts receivable and pre-closing revenue levels, which will increase or decrease the principal amount of the promissory note as applicable. 

About EMCORE

EMCORE Corporation offers a broad portfolio of compound semiconductor-based products for the broadband and specialty fiber optics market. EMCORE provides optical components, subsystems and systems for Cable Television (CATV) and Fiber-To-The-Premise (FTTP) networks, as well as products for satellite communications, video transport and specialty photonics technologies for defense and homeland security applications. For further information about EMCORE, visit http://www.emcore.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including forward-looking statements regarding the sale of its tunable laser and transceiver product lines. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, risks relating to EMCORE's future prospects and other risks detailed in our filings with the SEC, including those detailed in EMCORE's Annual Report on Form 10-K under the caption "Risk Factors," as updated by EMCORE's subsequent filings with the SEC, all of which are available at the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. EMCORE Corporation does not intend, and disclaims any obligation, to update any forward-looking information contained in this release or with respect to the announcements described herein.

Difference frequency generation makes tunable mid-IR lasers possible

Mathieu Giguère

Nonlinear frequency mixing of two laser sources results in a widely tunable laser perfectly suited for molecular spectroscopy.

24 October 2013, SPIE Newsroom. DOI: 10.1117/2.1201310.005163

http://spie.org/x104001.xml?highlight=x2404&WT.mc_id=KNRLASERCE

Mid-IR lasers—which operate at wavelengths of 3–20μm—are used in a wide range of applications such as remote sensing,1 pollutant monitoring,2laser-based countermeasures, and narcotics or explosives detection.3 However, the availability of such lasers is limited. Devices operating at wavelengths longer than 1.8μm are not widely tunable nor do they exhibit the narrow linewidths needed for advanced applications such as spectroscopy. Adjustable sources like thulium-doped fiber lasers and optical parametric oscillators (OPOs)—which convert a single input laser to two output beams at lower frequencies—have not yet emerged.

So far, OPOs are the leading candidate for mid-IR laser sources but frequency adjustments are limited and require temperature or angular tuning, making their design sensitive to mechanical vibrations. More recently, quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) have surfaced, which are based on microstructured semiconductor lasers. Extensive development effort has led to relatively high power with room-temperature operation. However, the tunability of a single unit is still constrained. Moreover, the design of a widely tunable source requires the combination of many single devices, resulting in a fairly complex optical integration. The ideal mid-IR source for spectroscopic applications needs to be mechanically robust, stable during temperature fluctuations, and tunable over a broad spectral range.

Our solution is based on difference frequency generation (DFG), a nonlinear process that involves combining two photons of different energies to produce a third photon whose energy equals the difference between those of the incident photons: see Figure 1. By applying the DFG process to the pulses of a commercially available picosecond synchronized laser (SL), we can obtain a tunable mid-IR source with fairly good spectral resolution (<1cm−1).

Figure 1. Difference frequency generation (DFG) creates a photon from the frequency difference between two incident photons: the pump and signal. The DFG photon is generated only when the pump and signal laser light are present with sufficient intensity. ω: Frequency.

Our SL system (see Figure 2) consists of two fiber-based laser sources.4The first source is a picosecond programmable laser (PL) whose emitted wavelength can be tuned continuously and rapidly at up to 80,000 different wavelengths per second. The main features of the PL come from the combination of a dispersive element inside the laser cavity and an electro-optic modulator (EOM) acting as an active mode-locker. Since the laser cavity length is different for each wavelength, fast tuning is achieved by changing the driving frequency of the EOM. The second part of the SL is composed of a picosecond master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) electronically synchronized to the PL, regardless of the wavelength at which it is being operated. Also, since the SL is electronically controlled, many intrinsic features can be exploited, such as phase dithering, rapid arbitrary wavelength tuning, and match filtering in order to increase the signal-to-noise ratio for novel detection techniques.

 

Figure 2. Schematic of our mid-IR laser source. By combining two high-peak-power lasers (red, blue) into a nonlinear DFG crystal, the output laser wavelength (blue) shifts to a different spectral region such as visible, near-IR, or mid-IR (3–4 and 6–12μm). Wavelength, synchronization, and dither are all electronically controlled. MOPA: Master oscillator power amplifier. WDM: Wavelength division multiplexer.

We have demonstrated a widely tunable mid-IR source using a PL based on a tunable thulium-doped silica fiber (1905–1990nm) along with a MOPA based on erbium-doped silica fiber (1530–1585nm). The resulting source is tunable from 6.62μm up to 9.43μm. We tested many DFG crystals—silver gallium sulfide (AGS), silver gallium selenite (AGSE), and orientation-patterned gallium arsenide (OP-GaAs)—for their conversion efficiency as well as their phase-matching bandwidth stability without any temperature or angular tuning. Each crystal has its own advantages and trade-offs (see Figure 3). For instance, AGS provides the widest bandwidth for a single crystal unit but very low conversion efficiency. We achieved up to 1000nm of bandwidth around 7.5μm with hundreds of microwatts of mid-IR radiation for watt-level SL power. On the other hand, AGSE provided fairly good efficiency (>10mW) but with only ∼100nm of bandwidth under the same experimental conditions. In the end, we used OP-GaAs: a quasi-phase-matching crystal. We found it had the best conversion efficiency (>40mW) though it exhibited the narrowest tuning range (<50nm). Even though OP-GaAs crystals do not have a broad tuning range, the quasi-phase-matching medium provides an opportunity to engineer the crystal properties in order to significantly enhance the tuning range and hopefully reach the actual DFG spectrum achievable through use of the SL.

 

Figure 3. Relative intensity and tuning range obtained with different nonlinear DFG crystals. AGS: Silver gallium sulfide. AGSE: Silver gallium selenite. OP-GaAS: Orientation-patterned gallium arsenide. a.u.: Arbitrary units.

Additionally, we demonstrated that by combining an ytterbium-doped fiber laser (1030–1090nm) with one that is erbium-doped (1530–1585nm) within a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal, it is possible to obtain a tunable source (2.9–3.8μm) with exactly the same technical advantages.5

In order to target applications such as explosives detection, we have developed a mid-IR laser source that applies DFG techniques to a synchronized laser. One of the main advantages is the fast tunability of the programmable laser. This feature allows the user to rapidly tune the laser frequency over a specified range in either a sequential or arbitrary manner. Another advantage is that the resolution and speed are fully programmable and can be independently set by the user. This is possible because the laser is driven by advanced electronics that are controlled via a graphical user interface running on a PC. With these promising results, we can next combine our mid-IR source with the right components (e.g., detectors, optical components, and software) to engineer a complete system solution for molecular detection applications.

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Mathieu Giguère

Genia Photonics

Laval, Canada

Mathieu Giguère has been a mid-IR system specialist with Genia Photonics since 2012 where he is technical lead of multiple projects in the Defense and Security sector. He has developed a strong expertise in nonlinear optics and optical system design.

References:

1. J. D. Suter, B. E. Bernacki, M. C. Phillips, Angle-resolved scattering spectroscopy of explosives using an external cavity quantum cascade laser, Proc. SPIE 8268, p. 82681O, 2012. doi:10.1117/12.908653

2. D. J. Phillips, E. A. Tanner, H. O. Everitt, I. R. Medvedev, C. F. Neese, J. Holt, F. C. De Lucia, Infrared/terahertz double resonance for chemical remote sensing: signatures and performance predictions, Proc. SPIE 7671, p. 76710F, 2010. doi:10.1117/12.853309

3. J. R. Castro-Suarez, Y. S. Pollock, S. P. Hernandez-Rivera, Explosives detection using quantum cascade laser spectroscopy, Proc. SPIE 8710, p. 871010, 2013. doi:10.1117/12.2016037

4. J. Salhany, B. Burgoyne, Fiber lasers: programmability comes to fiber lasers, Laser Focus World 48(3), 2010.

5. F. Théberge, J.-F. Daigle, A. Villeneuve, J. Salhany, B. Burgoyne, Y. Soudagar, M. Châteauneuf, J. Dubois, Tunable mid-infrared generation using synchronized programmable fiber lasers, Proc. SPIE 8381, p. 83810E, 2012. doi:10.1117/12.921500

Genia Photonics tunable lasers are revolutionizing spectroscopy

I recently mentioned Genia Photonics, (GP),and the recent agreement it has entered into with In-Q-Tel in my end of the year post.  I noted  that aside from the collective "buzz", that is currently going on regarding  CMOS, solid state THz, the news about GP's, new very powerful and very highly sensitive new THz product, was the most interesting THz related story this year in my opinion.

I also mentioned that I had tried to make contact with GP, to learn more to share with you here, but that I had not had any luck. Writing about GP earlier this week peaked my interest anew, and I revisited their web-page. http://www.geniaphotonics.com/ Let me share with you what I found.

Founded in 2009 by the merger of Optav Solutions and FG2 Tech, Genia Photonics Inc. webpage states it is an innovative company specializing in high-speed picosecond fiber-based lasers and spectroscopic measurement systems. Centered around it's patented fiber laser technology, Genia’s compact, easy to use and controlled via software systems is claimed to change the methodology for various applications in biomedical, industrial as well as defense and security. Dr. Gonthier and Dr. Villeneuve boast together over 35 years of experience in transferring innovative R & D technology into profitable commercial products.

What I found to be really informative and helpful in substantiating GP's claims were articles found under the news tab, on the homepage. (Note that you can't access these pages without first signing your name & email address, but if you do access is immediate).

I found two articles to be of much interest to me, (the first of which I will provide you with  a lay-persons, non-technical review). The first is a reprint of an article In-Q-Tel, published in April of 2012, about GP, which is titled "Standoff Explosive Detection". 

In-Q-Tel, in this paper substantiates GP's claims, as IQT, notes that GP has a "technical advantage". 
'Genia Photoics offers fiber-based laser solutions that leverage the benefits of fiber, such as durability, robustness, small size, lower total cost and increased reliability, /The lasers are all software controlled which through the embedded electronics permits all the laser''s characteristic parameters [wavelength, pulse width, output power, and tuning speed] to be easily controlled. The wide wavelength tuning range and the fast tuning speed of the laser are key enablers for standoff explosive detection, allowing greater coverage for a given time interval or a reduction of the scanning time interval for a specific area." 

The article is 3 pages in length and notes a number of other technical advantages the GP fiber-based laser. The system allows for nonlinear spectroscopy as well as mid-IR spectroscopy. The detailed article concludes by noting that:
"The versatile synchronized laser system supports various standoff detection schemes.  It offers many desired features and capabilities such as wavelength tuning, pulse width variation, output power control, and repetition rate variation.  The ability of wavelengths to be swept at a very fast rate enables a specific area to be scanned in a much shorter time interval.  And, since the wavelength and repetition rate are associated, the need for a spectrometer at the receiving end is eliminated.  Multiple detectors can then be economically deployed to capture more reflected light for a better analysis.  Moreover, since all parameters are controlled electronically via software, it is possible to combine different detection techniques [bulk and trace simultaneously] in order to obtain a full detection of the targeted sample."

The second article I would recommend readers read is entitled "How Tunable Lasers are Revolutionizing Spectroscopy", which was authored internally at GP. It also more fully describes the revolutionary laser GP has developed for use in THz.
 I once again encourage readers to review these articles in their entirety on the GP webpage, which is linked above.
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