NeoPhotonics Corporation announced that it is sampling high power Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs) and Narrow Linewidth (NLW) Distributed Feedback Lasers (DFB) lasers for long range automotive Lidar (“light detection and ranging”) applications.

NeoPhotonics SOAs and NLW lasers operate in eye-safe wavelength regions, and these offerings feature 1550nm wavelength SOAs with >24 dBm (>250mW) output power along with 1550nm NLW-DFB lasers that enable automotive Lidar systems to “see” farther than 200 meters for enhanced safety.

Next generation Lidar systems will use “coherent” technology to increase the range and sensitivity by measuring the phase of the reflected light.  Coherent Lidar systems are fabricated using chip-scale manufacturing to reduce costs and enable high volume.  

Chip scale manufacturing requires coherent Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) powered by low phase and intensity noise semiconductor lasers and high output power semiconductor optical amplifiers. Narrow linewidth and low phase noise lasers enable the phase measurements required by coherent detection and optical amplifiers to boost the optical signal power for long reach detection.  When combined with coherent PIC receivers, high power SOA and NLW-DFB laser enable coherent Lidar transceivers for high volume manufacturing.

For more information, please visit: https://www.neophotonics.com/