PowerPhotonic provides a range of smile correctors for laser diode bar and stack applications.  These innovative products remove the effects of “smile” error on the collimated beam.  Standard products have parabolic smile correction, but can be specified with custom pointing error correction for each emitter.

The “smile” effect, caused by CTE mismatch during solder bonding, prevents the fast axis collimation (FAC) lens being correctly positioned for all points along the bar, resulting in beams with variable pointing direction.  This increases overall fast-axis divergence, and can have a severely detrimental impact on VBG locking efficiency and locking range. 

The smile correction value is marked on the optic for easy identification for select on test in production.

The PowerPhotonic Smile Correctors remove the impact of these degradations resulting in a dramatic improvement in laser performance.