By introducing two new models of its PULSELAS®-P series, ALPHALAS GmbH (Goettingen, Germany) sets new standards for commercially available passively Q-switched microchip lasers. The PULSELAS®-P-1064-400-HP delivers pulse energy of up to 0.4 mJ with pulse length of 1 ns and peak power of 400 kW. The record-breaking PULSELAS®-P-1064-150-HE delivers pulse energy of up to 1.6 mJ with pulse length of 1.1 ns and peak power of 1.5 MW. Both lasers operate at repetition rates of up to 200 Hz. The company has all the prerequisites to claim that the PULSELAS®-P-1064-150-HE is the most powerful commercially available microchip laser worldwide. All lasers of the PULSELAS®-P series feature extreme stability because the laser crystal, the passive Q-switch and the laser mirrors are combined into a single monolithic chip.

The ALPHALAS microchip lasers find numerous applications in industry and science. The main fields of application are material processing, micromachining, marking and cutting of extremely hard materials (e.g. diamonds), nonlinear optics, supercontinuum generation, time-resolved fluorescence measurements, DNA analysis, LIDAR and laser ranging, pollution monitoring, laser-induced breakdown-spectroscopy (LIBS) as well as ignition of explosives, gas mixtures and combustion engines. The ignition of combustion engines is a very promising area of application in which the PULSELAS®-P-1064-150-HE has been successfully tested. In contrast to electrical sparkplugs this method guarantees complete and efficient combustion in engines, even with lean gas mixtures. The reduction of exhaust pollutants is an important benefit.