Learn to drive lasers online

Online tools make it easier for developers to choose the right design of laser driver circuits for their applications.

iC-Haus has posted a wide range of application tools online to make it easier for developers to choose the right design of laser driver circuits for their applications.

The industrial environment has many diverse uses for laser diodes, ranging from light barriers to laser measuring instrumentation (such as distance sensors) to fast data transfer with further interesting applications materialising on an almost daily basis.

In the design of circuits engineers have a number of concerns, these being not only stable operation and the protection of the laser diode against external interference but also that the laser class is maintained during operation and in the event of error.

When designing laser drivers fluctuations in temperature and voltage must be compensated for in order to ensure constant laser power of the diode in CW or pulse operation.

Integrated laser driver circuits provide a sound basis for fast and safe design, with a broad selection of devices available to drive N, P or M type laser diodes with currents up to 350mA and frequencies up to 150MHz.

Besides application notes and specialist articles, iC-Haus has also made available online a web seminar which can be accessed at any time.

This seminar teaches the basics of safe laser diode driving.

The company's application support has now been extended further to include a new application report containing fourteen example circuits, tips on dimensioning and example calculations for all standard laser diodes.

This provides engineers of laser drivers with plenty of valuable information on how to design circuits safely and quickly.

In combination with suitable drivers, CW drive and analogue modulation are calculated in detail using examples.

This helps to save time and money in the circuit design.

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