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Robust and reliable bonding and mounting technology of fiber and free-space photonic products has been a challenge. A successful package has to take many factors into the account such as CTE mismatch of materials, microscopic material deformations and environment effects isolations while maintaining efficiently light coupling/redirecting/controlling. Conventional bonding and mounting routes such as laser welding, solder welding/epoxy bonding or mechanics mounting have been used widely in the packages of single-functional and regular photonic products of homo-properties. In most cases, special surface processing is requested. Thus they are suffered from the limitations for integrating multiple components and parts of different physical properties into a compact fixture.
WL Photonics Inc. has developed a unique platform of "Crystal-Bench" to address the issue above. The platform is able to implement fully-vertical, three dimension alignment and mount & bond solidly any element under the alignment into a desired location and orientation. The platform is composed of low CTE (~10 ¯7)materials such as fused silica or alike. Thus it is robust and inherently insensitive to temperature variations. The layer thickness of bonding materials, if has to be used at the interface between opto-mechanical components, is limited strictly less than several microns. The residual CTE mismatch of materials is further compensated in structural design. This athermal/robust platform has been approved valid and versatile to assemble compact/complex fixtures of multiple opto-mechanical-electric components.
WL Photonics Inc. implements the commercialization of innovative designs of its feature products on the athermal platform of Crystal-Bench, outperforming many existing competitors to become a leading provider of wavelength tuning and conditioning solutions on the market.
Narrowband Tunable Filters of WLTF-NM- & WLTF-NE- series are built based on free-space optical Fourier transformation combing with diffraction grating. Patent-pending optics design offers great options of bandwidth with unprecedented low insertion loss and polarization dependent loss (PDL). Precise tuning mechanism enables filters to provide high wavelength resolution and repeatability.
Both of manual and electric version filters are available over X-, O-, S-, C-, & L- bands. Wavelength-tuning is actuated by either a precise micrometer driver or a built-in micro motor connected to a PC through a USB (I²C or SPI) interface in which actuation is monitored by a built-in encoder and controlled dynamically in a closed-loop. Motor control software is provided.
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