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NM LASER PRODUCTS INC

San Jose,  CA 
United States
https://www.nmlaser.com/
  • Booth: 152

Safest and Most Reliable Electromechanical Laser Shutters

Overview

Laser Shutters & Optical Shutters

Laser Shutters for Safety Applications in Need of Maximum Optical Damage Threshold & Highest Optical Power Handling. Optical Shutters for Imaging Applications in Need of Continuous High Speed & High Repetition Rate Operations with Infinite Life. NM Laser has dedicated +3 decades of niche specialization to produce the world’s best OEM solutions for semiconductor, biotech, and medical industries, simultaneously developing cutting-edge tools for researchers.

The company engineers and manufactures the world’s safest and most reliable electromechanical laser shutters and controllers by meeting the production and integration challenges of OEMs and researchers in a continually growing number of broad and niche markets worldwide.

OEMs and research institutions are invited to contact NM Laser Products for consultation on laser shutters and shutter controllers for CW and pulsed laser applications. Our decades of application specialization can rapidly converge on an OEM Solution.

You can reach the factory staff for sales and technical support at [email protected]


  Press Releases

  • (Jun 15, 2023)

    Laser shutter lifetime is measured by mechanical failure and optical failure. When operated correctly, the optical elements can have near infinite life if kept clean. Extreme engineering of materials has yielded minimum particle generation. Purge ports are available for the most demanding semiconductor applications.

    Some models allow for cover removal and optics cleaning procedures. Mechanical lifetime is controlled by elastomer and polymer bonding techniques, and stresses from impacts, both from opening and closing the laser shutter. This can be controlled by the electronic controller waveform damping feature.

    We manufacture a wide variety of products, drawing compromises for intended markets. The Safety and Process laser shutters are designed to provide over 100 million cycles with recommended control circuits, and some are designed for over 1 billion cycles. We have tens of thousands of products produced that demonstrate the lifetime performance. We routinely run large batch life tests on revisions and new products.

    Some of our high speed laser shutters operate at very high velocities (6 m/s) and are designed with finite lifetimes in the 100-500 million cycle range. Controllers can be set to compromise speed vs. lifetime. The standard settings represent the general market’s desired level of compromise.

    Optical damage can be avoided if kept clean and if operated at proper wavelengths. Severe optical damage can affect mechanical elements. Most optics can be replaced if damaged (LIDT).

    Electrical damage can occur if thermal management is poor. This is irreversible damage, but does not occur under proper operation. Our wet-wound electromagnets have the highest reliability and thermal conductivity to the mounting surface.

    This technology represents the highest reliability in a mechanical laser shutter product. In applications where lifetime is much more important than speed, consult our sales engineers to assure your user-built control product is delivering the ideal waveform to the shutter.

    Many of the optical and laser shutter models are routinely used beyond 1 billion cycles in OEM equipment, primarily high speed processing. The inherent nature of this technology allows us to demonstrate such performance over the course of just a month or two of life testing.

    We are able to offer life test results to OEM customers once the electrical drive has been chosen and the laser shutter model, with all options, is chosen. They are a pair, and the lifetime performance is dependent on each other.

  • Electro-mechanical devices are designed to move a mass using either electric or magnetic fields. In macroscopic devices the magnetic field is the overwhelming choice. The goals can range from ultra-efficient use of available electrical current, as in space flight devices, to ultra-fast motion without limits on the current. In either case, the materials and geometry of the magnetics are key to performance. All of the desirable engineering functions must be addressed since they are highly convolved and cannot be optimized individually. The electric motor industry has nearly perfected the complicated task of optimizing the many functions for converting current flow into rotary motion. Reliability, torque, inductive response time, service cycles, thermal control, pole cogging, outgassing and many other features are quite mature design elements over the nearly 140 years of evolution. But what about linear motion?

    Many linear motion devices such as magnetic rails, using multiple magnetic elements, are mature and designed for automated machinery. Typically they are capable of moving modest masses over significant distances, such as a meter. Motors driving a lead screw to produce linear motion are still in the rotary motion class of magnetics. When you review small electro-magnetic devices designed for millimeters of motion, there are only a few cases. Typically these are relays, solenoid plunger valves, resonant vibration devices, and laser/optical shutter products. Relays and solenoids usually do not require extremely fast reaction times; their design emphasis is low cost and reliability. Resonant devices are fixed frequency, ultra-efficient and do not push the envelope for magnetic performance. Mechanical shutters that are electro-magnetically driven push the limits of material science in this space between micro electrostatic device motion and common motor/rail automated machinery.

    So what are some of the limits we run up against?

    If we are designing for electrical efficiency and not switching speed, such as in a safety shutter, magnetic design is focused on efficiency and reliability. Efficiency is chosen to minimize resistive heat in the magnetic winding and the resulting temperature rise. This is desirable for optical instruments with low optical power and no capability to sink heat. Heat sources affect sensitive optical instruments via wave-front modification thru air gradients, thermal expansion of mechanical elements, etc. A magnetic flexure with optic attached can be mated with an air-gapped, wound magnetic core, to close the air gap when energized with current. This creates a long toroid geometry, extremely efficient, with well contained field and the reliability advantage of a flexure. In practice, the toroid geometry core has flat surfaces for heat flow to a high thermal conductivity shutter body and the copper wire windings are wet wound with thermal epoxy to route resistive heat of the wires to the core (also high thermal conductivity).

    Polymer outgassing is a function of temperature so keeping things cool removes potential contamination film generation. Magnet wire is polymer coated. The magnetic efficiency and thermal transfer achievements ensure the shutter can operate open, closed, or cycling indefinitely….with no limits, and without creating thermal gradients in the beam path. In safety shutters where the average optical energy is higher, as in lasers > ~5W, the customer has already planned a thermal path in their mounting to dump the absorbed optical power. The efficient magnetics play a minor role, and the efficient thermal path of the optical absorbers play the major role. Small table top instruments, airborne and portable instruments, and any application with tight current budgets benefit from efficient, high reliability magnetics.

    Now, what about High-Speed Magnetics?

    We have some of the same performance interests in high-speed shutters as in safety shutters. We obviously want to use every flowing electron in the current to do mechanical work as fast as possible, so efficient, fast current escalation is required. How do we get fast work? Well we know F=ma, and our mass is optimized as low as possible for reliability considerations, so all we can do to get the acceleration up is to create more force. In air-gapped electro-magnets, the forces are generated by the (number of inductive turns)x(Amperes of current), or A-T. There are practical limits for the current. If you need 1000 A-T, you could use 1000 T and 1 Amp, or 1 T and 1000 Amps. Obviously, available power supplies for instruments are in the 10 Amp and less range. But bear in mind EV car motors do draw 1000A into fast motor electromagnets, and your average gasoline car starter motor can draw up to 200 A for a short time. So getting back to practical power supply values, the world has converged around a maximum of about 3-24 Volts and 10 Amps maximum for most instruments. Now build the fastest electromagnets around these parameters. What are we up against? Inductance delays, heat generation from copper wire resistance, clever thermal control, toleration of the magnetic system to shock and vibration, fast electrical damping current surge techniques, are critical.

    Unique Benefit: High-Speed Magnetically driven shutters with no cycle limitations (due to thermal control) deliver Rapid Life Test results, for example billions of cycles in a few months. This is crucial for OEM reliability evaluation and integration.

    Foremost in high-speed magnetics is thermal control. We have currents being generated rapidly and repetitively. We have to couple this wire heat to the magnetic core, then to the shutter body, then to the “infinite heat sink”. There are limits for thermal control. Heat is the (resistance) x (current squared), so as we push for more current the heat generation is squared. A diminishing return is found for any one design, setting a heat load limit.

    We also have to overcome mechanical impact recoil, or “bounce” when speeds are too high for effective current damping. Inductance limits how fast you can apply a damping force. In these cases we have to use slightly longer magneto-motive force Impulses to overcome recoil, and use mechanical material science to damp. Custom catenary contours are designed on the magnetic poles. Special materials for impact durability and temperature are chosen. Heat loads are slightly greater to mitigate recoil.

    Inductance increases with the square of the number of turns, so we want low inductance to make rapid speed motions, including damping. Inductance resists fast current changes. We’ll need rapid current impulses, yet need to have more turns for more force! How can we have both? We have to optimize our minimum and maximum parameters.

    Minimize: Heat Generation, Inductance, Thermal Path Length to Cooling, Ferromagnetic Flexure/mirror Mass, Mechanical Impact Shock from Flexure

    Maximize: Number of Magnetic Turns, Current, Winding Geometry Space, Magnetic Core and Flexure Permeability, Thermal Conductivity from Winding to Cooling, Cross Sectional Area of Thermal Path to Cooling, Mechanical Damping

    All of the design properties are inter-related, or convolved, so they cannot be independently optimized. Achieving maximum switching speed performance and sustained repetition rates for a particular aperture size, mechanical package, or current constraint requires a full understanding of how to optimize these physical parameters. Mother Nature’s material science has placed limits on some of the parameters; the others are highly refined at NML, understood and implemented in designs, standard and custom, for rapid evaluation and integration into OEM instruments and to support scientific research facilities.


  Products

  • LST500 shutter
    Introducing the LST500 safety laser shutter designed for maximum damage threshold, high power handling, and continuous cycling up to 15hz in a compact package. LST500 will meet all safety and pulse gating needs with unmatched reliability and lifetime...

  • The LST500 laser shutter model is designed for use as a laser safety interlock and processing application. The shutter provides TTL output position sensors for the open and closed states as standard equipment. Compatible system controllers are CX4000B or user-built circuits designed around 24 VDC @ 2 A.

    Options are available using a suffix code system. Many options cannot be installed after manufacture, so choose carefully. Choose the – IR suffix for IR use, starting at about 700 nm. The standard over-coated aluminum mirror is good from deep UV to about 700 nm. Special dielectric mirrors are available for OEM applications.

  • Optical Shutter – LST-5V Direct Drive
    NMLaser Products introduces the best value optical shutter available in the entire market. The LST-5VDC electrical drive provides the simplest form for users with 5V direct drive (no controller needed). ...

  • The high-reliability LST-5VDC optical shutter provides the best value with 5V direct drive. It is a compact 2” x 1” x 0.4” package size with 3 mm aperture that provides the optimum package to aperture size ratio.

    The electrical drive becomes the simplest form for users with 5V direct drive. The lowest cost electrical drive, a switch, is achieved. Thermal management becomes negligible with only 2.5W thermal power dissipation when holding open.

  • Laser Shutters & Optical Shutters
    Laser Shutters for Safety Applications in Need of Maximum Optical Damage Threshold & Highest Optical Power Handling....

  • Laser shutters designed for safety applications in need of continuous high-power handling & Maximum Optical Damage threshold.
    Optical Shutters are built for continuous operation at high speeds and high repetition rates with an infinite lifetime.

    Contact our engineering team for consultation and technical support on standard and customized OEM applications.


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