RPMC Lasers Blog

Last year we published a blog post on the subject of combining active imaging and night vision by using time-of-flight (TOF) gated lidar to produce three-dimensional images of a target without the need for visible light.  We will revisit this topic,...

Here at RPMC Lasers, we have always prided ourselves on our willingness and ability to provide system integrators with customized laser packaging solutions.  The team of laser diode experts at RPMC has been working as the interface between our...

For any laser to function, there must be more gain inside the laser cavity than loss, and the point at which the laser gain is just large enough to overcome the cavity loss enabling lasing is called gain threshold.  While simple, in theory, this...

RPMC Lasers, has partnered with Integrated Optics, for several years now, to provide our customers with high-quality compact diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) and diode laser modules.   In order to meet growing production demands, Integrated Optics...

At RPMC, we are excited to announce the release of our newest white paper titled "Fundamentals of Confocal Raman Microscopy."  While there are many white papers out there which focus heavily on the spectroscopy aspects of this application, we have...

Here at RPMC Lasers, we have over 20 years of experience helping the photonics community with their solid-state laser needs.  Over this time, we have answered a wide range of questions from both end users and system integrators, ranging from...

Last fall, RPMC took a look at the application of high power fiber-coupled diode lasers in machine vision systems for rail inspection in our blog titled “High Power Laser Line Generator for Rail Inspection.” Now in this application note, we are going...

Laser Diode Fundamentals: Fiber Coupling (Part 2 of 2)

Last fall, we published a blog titled “Micromachining Lasers for Anti-Counterfeiting,” where we explored how laser micromachining can be used to embed microscopic two-dimensional identification codes directly onto the item of interest.   In addition...

Laser Diode Fundamentals: Fiber Coupling (Part 1 of 2)

Microchip lasers have been around since 1989 when they were first produced at MIT’s Lincoln Labs, but it wasn’t until recently that they have become commonplace in the commercial laser market.  As such, they are still somewhat misunderstood. In this...

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is one of the most popular laser based atomic spectroscopy techniques on the market today.  Nowadays, LIBS is rapidly becoming an indispensable tool for elemental analysis and is generally viewed as a...

Flow cytometry is a method for simultaneously analyzing multiple physical properties of an individual cell as it flows through a beam of light in a fluid stream, including the cells size and fluorescence.   In practice, flow cytometry is essentially a...

In the last installment of our Laser Diode Fundamentals series, we took a deep dive into the underlying physical properties behind the longitudinal mode structure of laser diodes.  In that blog post, we explained the advantages and disadvantages to...

Flashlamp pumped pulsed Er:YAG lasers have been widely utilized in dermatology and dentistry as an alternative to CO2 lasers, but historically continuous wave (CW) and quasi-continuous wave (QCW) Er:YAG lasers were problematic due to their unique...

After a small hiatus, we here at RPMC Lasers are excited to bring you a new application note.  This one titled “Lasers Sources for Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy Detection (TDLAS) of Methane Gas” explores the importance of methane...

Micromanipulation of sub-millimeter objects is one of the more underappreciated technical challenges in modern scientific research.   To fully understand their properties, objects such as dielectric spheres, viruses, bacteria, living cells,...

Injection molding is a widely used process for rapidly mass-producing low cost highly uniform mechanical parts.  On a cursory level, it is a relatively straight forward process by which molten material (metal, glass, polymer, etc.) is injected into a...

Additive manufacturing, or as its more commonly referred - 3D printing, has revolutionized manufacturing processes over the past ten years.  This technology which was once reserved for high-end research and prototyping applications is now so...

Nearly one-third of all Americans have at least one tattoo, and of those who do roughly one-quarter of them say they regret getting it.  As a result, nearly 27 million people in the United States alone have at least one unwanted tattoo.   Based on...

On April 10th, the scientific community was elated at the release of the first-ever image of a black hole in the center of the M87 galaxy in the Virgo Cluster.  By Imaging the photon ring around the black hole shadow and utilizing the Schwarzschild...

Holography is simultaneously one of the most well-known and yet most misunderstood optical techniques.  The word hologram derives from the combination of two different Greek words “holo” meaning “whole” and “gram” meaning “drawing.”  Understanding the...

Optical particle counting is widely deployed in cleanrooms around the world as a means for counting and sizing the number of particles in the air.  Most people who have ever worked in a clean room, are familiar with the Federal Standard 209E cleanroom...

According to the American Association of Dermatology (AAD), acne is the most common skin condition in the United States, affecting up to 50 million Americans annually with a nontrivial percentage suffering from a chronic form of the condition. ...

There are two critical parameters that all lasers diodes must meet to begin the lasing process.  The first one of these parameters is that there must be more gain than loss inside the laser cavity, the point at which this condition is satisfied is...