QPC Lasers ships high-power laser for Department of Defense airborne weapons applications
April 27, 2008
SYLMAR, Calif., 27 April 2008. QPC Lasers Inc., maker of high-brightness, high-power semiconductor lasers for the consumer, industrial, defense, and medical markets, has delivered a high-power laser to a U.S. Government Department of Defense customer to be used as a fiber laser pump engine for next-generation airborne directed energy weapons applications.
The deliverable marks a key milestone in QPC's ongoing development contract with this U.S. government customer that has awarded QPC $1.75 million in contracts since April of 2007. The BrightLase high power laser leverages QPC's patented and proprietary semiconductor laser technologies that are designed to achieve a 10x reduction of cost, size, and weight compared to conventional laser technology.
"Today's high-energy lasers are based on inefficient and bulky traditional technologies such as chemical lasers, but the future belongs to more efficient and compact diode pumped lasers. We believe that high power, compact and efficient chip-based diode lasers using QPC technologies are poised to become crucial elements in deployable high energy weapons," said Dr. Jeffrey Ungar, co-founder and CEO of QPC. "With this delivery, we continue the refinement of our Generation III laser technologies for both military and commercial applications. These Generation III lasers enable a broad base of potential commercial applications and since their launch in September of 2007, have generated over $13 Million of new commercial contracts for defense, Laser TV, surgical and therapeutic applications," Ungar concluded.
