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P h o t o n i x F e b r u a r y 5 - 7 , 2 0 1 3 2 0 sapphire, Zerodur Schott filter glass and composites. IRD partners closely with you to assure you receive exactly what you need. IRD Glass currently supplies laser components, precision pressure tubes and mounts, cylindrical and spher- ical lenses, cuvettes, windows, mirrors, sub-assemblies, prisms, wedges and thin-film coatings. The ability to meet your needs makes IRD Glass an award-winning cus- tom component supplier; they are ISO 9001:2008, Veteran-Owned and ITAR compliant. The company's midwest workforce is highly skilled and cross- trained, enabling IRD to provide you with a dedicated team strategically assembled to address your specific needs. IRD's business model allows it to quickly mesh with your company, inte- grate its delivery with your production cycle, and provide you with quality com- ponents, quick delivery and competitive rates. IRD will work side by side with your engineers to make sure your parts are designed for the ultimate manufac- turability, taking into account materials, features, product requirements and toler- ances. IRD's quality policy statement says it all: "Our goal is to partner with our customers and take personal responsibil- IRD Glass (Con't. from p. 1) ity to continuously improve performance while providing customers with consis- tent value." IRD is so confident in their expertise that they have rolled out the industry's only double guarantee! On-Time Shipping Guarantee IRD understands that if you don't receive your components when you expect them, the entire profitability of your project is in jeopardy. IRD Glass guarantees that your order will arrive by the delivery date they confirm upon receipt of order. If this delivery is missed, IRD will offer you a 25 percent discount on your next shipment! Quality Guarantee IRD Glass also understands that consis- tent and dependable quality is of the utmost importance. IRD guarantees that it will take full responsibility for any quality issues that might arise, and that it will remedy any issue to your satisfac- tion or replace the items at no cost. Please stop by booth 5244 at Photonics West and discuss how IRD can increase the profitability on your current or upcoming glass project. Visit the compa- ny website at www.irdglass.com, email ird@irdglass.com or call 320-593-9485 for more information. bandwidth (but huge acceptance angle) LC filter for the Navy's submarine laser communication research. We are also very proud of being awarded a 2012 R&D100 award for collaboration on an optically addressed spatial light modula- tor with Lawrence Livermore's laser damage protection efforts on NIF (the biggest and brightest laser in the world). PX: What are you focusing on showing this week at Photonics West and BIOS? PS: We have a whole family of liquid crystal tunable filters that we customize for a gamut of different applications; Everything from Military and telecomm optical wavelength switches to biopho- tonics imaging. We recently had an astro- nomical customer in Italy who success- fully used a liquid crystal based filter for solar observations from a sounding rocket. PX: Meadowlark Optics has been around for more than 30 years. What have you done lately to stay competitive? PS: We've expanded our capabilities to include wafer dicing, waterjet cutting and in-house laser marking/low-power machining so we have faster turn on our OEM jobs. The telecom market has start- ed heating up again, and we feel it's much more sustainable than the '01 bub- ble. We have two new OEMs in that arena who are steadily ramping up pro- duction, and we've made many produc- tion improvements to support those cus- tomers. PX: What are Meadowlark Optics' strengths and weaknesses? What chal- lenges do you face? PS: Meadowlark has always and will always put quality and customer service as our most important focus. With more than 30 years of experience, we've been Meadowlark (Con't. from p. 1) involved in so many different areas, we always have some place to start which can help reduce the development cycle time. (And also to point out common but subtle polarization "gotchas!") We are in a very competitive marketplace but we continue to focus on making high quality optics rather than go head-to-head with the commodity market. Even so, our prices are very competitive in mid-range quantities, say 100 to 5,000 optics/year. One issue we often struggle with is deciding which projects to turn down. There are so many applications and areas for polarization research it can be diffi- cult to decide where to focus our efforts. PX: What comes next? PS: Even though we have an extensive catalog, more than 80 percent of the products and systems we produce are either custom or semi-custom modified versions. We never know what our cus- tomers are going to ask us for help with next which keeps the development team always eager to answer the phone. One thing we can say is that we're coming out with new versions of our electronics. Evolving operating systems encourage and enable us to look into improved hard- ware and software versions. PX: Do you think anyone has gotten this far into the interview? PS: Not sure. Probably not. Ready for that Westvleteren Abbey six pack? I think there are five left… not sure what hap- pened to number six. For more information, drop by BIOS booth 8105 or Photonics West booth 1840. After the show be sure to check out www.meadowlark.com, email mlo@meadowlark.com or call 303-833- 4333. one fiber type to another; whether it is it is expanding the fiber core and splicing two dissimilar fibers together or build- ing a combiner by fusing multiple pump fibers onto a single output fiber, we can build such a device. Additionally, we have a line of free space isolators also used in high power fiber laser applica- tions. Finally, we provide specialty fiber termination services, i.e. polariza- tion maintaining connectorization, no reference glass ferrule angles polish, and non-standard optical interface ter- minations. PX: What would make your company unique and what distinguishes your products from the competition? DC: We are unique because we can deliver a cost-effective solution to an otherwise costly custom optical prob- lem. In the burgeoning fiber laser and amplification space, customization is almost a daily requirement. Everyday numerous companies and research and development engineers wake up to try to realize their next new fiber laser product. They need to go from point A to point B, all the while trying to fit within the right size box literally and figuratively. There is always that not- to-exceed-by-too-much budget with a ticking clock. Then there is that missing key component that does not yet com- mercially exist. Here is where we can help. Neptec is the exclusive North American Sales Neptec Optical Solutions (Con't. from p. 1) Rep for LightComm Technology locat- ed in Shenzhen, China. LightComm boasts a research and development team of 65-plus engineers and is the world's biggest fiber combiner supplier. Our product offering include many of the key components for fiber laser and amplification systems. In most instances, we have the fundamental technology and product to offshoot and build that sought after missing compo- nent for the next-gen fiber laser. We will research, develop and build that enabling custom fiber component at China's research and development cost model and support production as the world's largest fiber combiner manu- facturer. We design and build products that make our customers successful. PX: What product categories do you offer? DC: The following is a general listing of product categories that we offer: Fiber Pump Combiners, High Power Isolators, High Power Collimators, Mode Field Adapters, Cladding Power Strippers, Fiber End-caps, High Power Couplers, Laser Pilot WDMs and PM High Power Components. Any compa- ny that uses any of these items and has a problem to resolve, I urge them to contact us. Please send inquiries to sales@neptecos.com or call 510-687- 1101. For more information, be sure to visit booth 4101 at Photonics West 2013 and check out www.neptecos.com. in minimal collateral damage compared to other laser choices. CTH:YAG is flash lamp pumped through an energy transfer process. The lamp energy is absorbed by the Cr ions which transfer their energy to the Tm ions in a high efficiency process, The Tm ions then undergo a cross relaxation wherein a ground state Tm ion and an excited state Tm ion "combine" to yield two ions in a lower excited state. These lower excited state Tm ions then transfer their energy to the Ho ions which emit the 2.1µ light. Ruby was used in the first optical laser, but still sees commercial use in dermatol- ogy. Although there is not rapidly growing demand for the material, the use is steady and provides a niche business for Laser Materials Corporation as there are fewer competitors producing this material. For laser rods, it is important that the material be grown strain free to provide low optical aberration. To produce this low strain material, Laser Materials grows all of its crystals at large diameter and with close- ly controlled growth parameters. With large diameter boules, the crystal morphological features are smaller relative to the laser rod diameter, hence the strain is greatly reduced. Laser Materials (Con't. from p. 1) YAG is nominally isotropic, but in the growth process, a central highly strained core region forms due to a significantly lower natural rate of growth along the <211> direction. The crystal is grown along the <111> direction and forms a conical interface in the melt. This conical interface then has three lobes where the <211> crys- tallographic direction intersects the growing material. This core region is unusable due to the high level of strain. In a large diameter boule the core diameter does not scale with boule diameter, and the "clean" region between the core and the skin is large and provides good optically homogeneous material. Laser Materials Corporation is located in Vancouver, Wash. All laser rod manufac- turing from crystal growth to coating takes place at this location. With ample facilities for expansion, Laser Materials expects to see expansion in both its Nd:YAG business and these new materials in coming years. For more information, visit booth 4928 in the North Hall at Photonics West 2013. After the show, be sure to check out www.lasermaterials.com, call 360-254- 4180 or email sales@lasermaterials.com.