Crystals and optics processing services

Invented by H.W. Dove, Dove Prisms are also known Reversion prisms.  When the prism is rotated about its length axis, the image viewed through the prism rotates at twice the prism rotation rate.  This is an unusual and sometimes useful property for special applications. Entry and exit faces are anti-reflection coated.

α-BBO (α-BaB2O4) is a negative uniaxial crystal which has large birefringence over a broad transparent range of 190nm to 3500nm. α-BBO is an excellent crystal especially in UV and high power applications. The physical, chemical, thermal, and optical properties of alpha-BBO crystal are similar to those of Beta-BBO. However, there is no second order nonlinear effect in alpha-BBO crystal due to the centrosymmetry in its crystal structure and thus it has no use for second order nonlinear optical processes. Instead, alpha-BBO is widely used for fabrication of polarizers, polarizing beam displacers, phase retarders, birefringent plates, and time delay compensators especially those for UV and high power lasers.

Plano-convex circular cylindrical lenses are useful for line imaging or uni-axial magnification in a wide range of applications. These lenses may be combined with other lenses to form complex imaging systems.

BK7 window is the most common type of window. It has good performance over visible and near infrared wavelength regions. At the same time, BK7 window is ideal for applications require minimal transmitted beam deviation. It is suitable for AR coating.

  LiNbO3 is widely used as electro-optic modulators and Q-switches for Nd:YAG, Nd:YLF and Ti:Sapphire lasers as well as modulators for fiber optics.  

Potassium Gadolinium Tungstate (KGd(WO₄)₂) crystal is an excellent stimulated Raman laser crystal with characteristics such as a wide light transmission range, good thermal conductivity, high damage threshold, large Raman shift coefficient, and high Raman gain. It can maintain high conversion efficiency and beam quality during the Raman frequency conversion process. The KGW crystal can withstand high pump power and is suitable for pump lights of various wavelengths, making it widely used in Raman lasers, laser frequency conversion, medical imaging, photodynamic therapy, environmental monitoring, spectroscopy research, material processing, and other fields.

Nd:YVO4 (Neodymium Doped Yttrium Orthovanadate) crystals is one of the most promising commercially available diode pumped solid state laser materials, especially, for low to middle power density. This is mainly for its higher absorption and emission features than Nd:YAG crystal. Pumped by laser diodes, Nd:YVO4 crystal has been incorporated with high NLO coefficient crystals ( LBO, BBO, or KTP) to frequency-shift the output from the near infrared to green, blue, or even UV. This incorporation to construct all solid state lasers is an ideal laser tool that can cover the most widespread applications of lasers, including machining, material processing, spectroscopy, wafer inspection, light displays, medical diagnostics, laser printing, and data storage, etc. It has been shown that Nd:YVO4 based diode pumped solid state lasers are rapidly occupying the markets traditionally dominated by water-cooled ion lasers and lamp-pumped lasers, especially when compact design and single-longitudinal-mode outputs are required.

Polarization Beamsplitter Cubes are constructed by cemented two right angle prisms, the hypotenuse of one prism is coated with polarization dielectric coating. When used with normal incident, un-polarized light, the incident beam is separated into two polarized beams, p-polarized component is passed straight through, s-polarized component is reflected out at 90deg.