Optics

Electro-Optics Technology (EOT) and LLNL sign CRADA for Faraday rotator

Sept. 25, 2017

EOT and LLNL launched the CRADA to develop and manufacture a 100 kW Faraday rotator over the next three years.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Electro-Optics Technology (EOT) have signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to develop a 100 kW Faraday rotator.

Electro-Optics Technology (EOT; Traverse City, MI), in alliance with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL; Livermore, CA), has launched a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to develop and manufacture a 100 kW Faraday rotator over the next three years.

"On behalf of all EOT employees, we are honored and excited to work with LLNL to develop Faraday rotators for use in laser systems at unprecedented power levels," said David Scerbak, CEO of EOT. "We look forward to many mutual technological developments which enable the commercialization of these important devices for future generation laser systems and applications."

Both partners bring unique expertise into this CRADA to jointly push the frontiers of laser technology: EOT is a world-renowned expert in Faraday rotators and LLNL's NIF Photon Science (NIF&PS) Directorate is a long-standing world leader in developing energetic high average power, pulsed, and ultrafast laser systems. This work is being executed within the Advanced Photon Technologies (APT) program of NIF&PS, which investigates and develops cutting-edge photon technologies that enable both scientific advancement and new commercial applications.

Faraday rotators operating at the highest average powers are needed for laser systems with applications in industry, national security, fusion energy drivers, and science. Both partners are excited to collaborate on this effort and look forward to the new opportunities it will provide within the industry.

"We are pleased to engage EOT in this work. One of our goals as part of a national security laboratory is to enhance US leadership and national competitiveness in advanced photon technologies. A key strategy in doing that is to engage in exactly this sort of close-working CRADA with industry leaders," said Craig Siders, senior scientist and commercial technology development leader in APT. "We look forward to the near-term impact this joint team will have on high average power handling rotators, and to the potential longer-term impact to science and society as the enabled high-power lasers improve the capability and capacity of US industry."

SOURCE: EOT; https://www.eotech.com/133/crada

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.