IRVINE, Calif. -- Newport Corporation has developed a novel diode laser current driver circuit with noise characteristics that are ten times lower than anything currently available on the market. In addition, this new design approach delivers greater stability, expanded dynamic range, improved electrical efficiency, and the ability to work with lasers over a wider resistance range. These improvements will benefit any noise sensitive diode laser based application, such as telecommunications research or spectroscopy.

The Newport design is based on a switching power supply that drives an output current regulator. The key innovations in the Newport design are the addition of a voltage regulator to power the current regulator, circuitry to equalize the voltage drop across these circuit elements, and the placement of each on separate heatsinks. Splitting the power dissipation through the use of two heatsinks results in the benefits already enumerated. In particular, it reduces the required thermal mass at each heatsink, enabling them to respond faster to changes in diode laser resistance or from user adjustments. By placing the two heatsinks face-to-face they can even be cooled by a single fan in a physically compact configuration. Newport has applied for a patent on this design and various alternate embodiments.

Newport Corp.