ZURICH -- Bookham Technology plc (“Bookham”) (LSE: BHM; NASDAQ: BKHM) has developed and qualified a family of high-power laser diode bars, based upon its telecoms market-leading 980nm gallium arsenide (GaAs) laser diodes, to meet the needs and opportunities of key industrial sectors. The initial products are now qualified and have been shipping during the current quarter.

Bookham’s Zurich-based division has over 20 years’ experience of developing and manufacturing large volumes of high brightness, reliable GaAs laser diodes. Bookham has now applied this technology and experience to the development of cutting-edge solutions for the industrial, medical, military, and aerospace markets.

“We are recognised as a leader in the telecoms sector in high-power 980nm lasers,” said Chuck Milligan, VP Industrial and Defense solutions. “Now we have adapted this technology into the industrial market. To achieve this we have leveraged our strong capabilities in laser diode design, reliability analysis and manufacturing capability. The significant investments and efforts we have made over the years into capacity, yield improvement and automation enable us to offer what we believe is best-in-class performance of high-power lasers at competitive cost.”

Bookham completed the qualification of an 808nm 50W laser bar in December 2003. Since then over 5,000 hours of testing have been achieved with excellent results. Laser bars at 808nm and 60W have now also been qualified under the harshest operating condition of pulsing from off to peak power, which puts the laser diode through a full thermal cycle about once per second. During qualification, minimal degradation has been observed and no devices have failed. Bookham is now completing qualification of an 80W bar at 9xxnm. A 120W bar is planned for release by the end of the year.

“Wavelengths from 780nm to 1060nm are now available,” said Milligan. “Both bare and mounted bars are available, the latter on either a standard micro-channel cooler or passively-cooled copper mount. The footprint is industry standard.”

Bookham Technology plc