Thorlabs SC4500 Mid Infrared (MIR) Supercontinuum Source

The Thorlabs SC4500 Mid Infrared (MIR) Supercontinuum Source is claimed to be the first femtosecond-pumped supercontinuum source on the market. It spans over a wavelength range from approximately 1.3 to 4.5 μm (7500 to 2200 cm^-1) and emits more than 300 mW of average output power in a collimated beam. Within this range, the source’s brightness is said to exceed that of traditional light sources, such as glow bars and even synchrotron sources, by orders of magnitude.

The supercontinuum light is generated by pumping a dispersion-engineered indium fluoride (InF₃) fibre with a high-power femtosecond fibre laser. Unlike supercontinuum sources pumped in the long-pulse regime (picoseconds to nanoseconds), the spectrum of a femtosecond-pumped source is stable from pulse to pulse. As a result, the supercontinuum source provides output noise of less than 0.025% RMS.

The product combines soft glass fibre draw and splicing, low-noise electronic design and ultrafast fibre laser design expertise. The low-noise, high-brightness and laser-like beam performance of the product makes it suitable for environmental sensing, biological and chemical threat identification, absorption spectroscopy and ultrafast spectroscopy applications requiring highly sensitive measurements.