Shipment of 2000th PHAROS Laser
Light Conversion is celebrating the production of the 2000th PHAROS femtosecond laser. The celebration marks a long journey of continuous development of the company‘s first femtosecond laser.
The first PHAROS laser was introduced at the Laser World of Photonics, Munich tradeshow in 2006. Back then, PHAROS featured an average power of 4 W and pulse energy of 0.2 mJ. Dr. Jonas Pocius, who is now the Manager of the Laser Department at Light Conversion, was only a doctoral student at the Faculty of Physics, Vilnius University. Yet he significantly contributed to the creation of the first PHAROS.
“The biggest motivation for me was the possibility to be part of creating something that the world has never seen before,” remembers Jonas. “Now, with the company close to 500 employees and, most importantly, fantastic people, I feel that this kind of motivation goes along with the whole team, enabling all of us to continue the success story.”
Commercialization of PHAROS
Hard work and dedication enabled rapid development. Within a few years the PHAROS laser was upgraded as commercial product that could operate 24/7 in an industrial environment. Light Conversion‘s first industrial client bought Pharos in 2009. Today this laser is still working 24/7 with an average downtime of 2%, providing excellent pump current and output power stability.
The continuous development led to new options, such as carrier-envelope phase (CEP) stabilization and repetition-rate locking. These features opened new possibilities in scientific applications, such as the locking synchrotrons, for example the world’s brightest storage-ring-based X-ray, radiation source PETRA III at DESY.
While science was pushing the first sales, the large volume industrial orders followed. Because of the latter, in 2016, we celebrated the 500th unit. The relatively high average power and high pulse energy enabled new capabilities in laser-matter interaction. Thus, opening the pathway to efficient micromachining applications and also expansion of their laser portfolio with the addition of CARBIDE femtosecond lasers and FLINT femtosecond oscillators.
Light Conversion’s growth speaks for itself. The 1000th PHAROS was shipped in 2019, and only three years later, they mark the 2000th unit. Now, the PHAROS laser has a model that features a 4 mJ pulse energy, as well as a model with <100 fs pulse duration — both at 20 W of average power. Industry and science both show high demand for PHAROS for material processing, spectroscopy, microscopy, and many other applications. This high demand will not stop any time soon!
To request more information or a quotation for Light Conversion products, contact IL Photonics.
(Photo of Dr. Jonas Pocius next to the first PHAROS laser at a tradeshow in 2006.)