Semiconductor Laser International receives license for aluminum-free materials

Semiconductor Laser International receives license for aluminum-free materials

The Northwestern University Center for Quantum Devices (Evanston, IL) has granted an exclusive license to Semiconductor Laser International (SLI; Endicott, NY) to develop, market, and sell high-power semiconductor lasers based on aluminum-free materials that the center perfected (see Laser Focus World, Nov. 1995, p. 36). Backed by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, development of the patented indium gallium arsenide phosphide technology was under director Manijeh Razeghi, who will serve as an advisor to SLI in commercializing the technology for long-life applications. Under the agreement, SLI paid the university $21,000 and 10,000 SLI shares. Northwestern will receive royalties on the first $50 million in net sales from products using this technology. Razeghi reports that ongoing lifetime tests of randomly selected 100-µm-aperture devices emitting at 808 nm (for pumping Nd:YAG lasers) have shown an output of 1 W at 60°C for 24,000 h (about 2.75 years) without significant degradation in output power, threshold current, or efficiency and without a change in wavelength. Aluminum-based devices last several hundred hours under such conditions.