Altechna’s Post

Last week in San Francisco was amazing! After more than 60 meetings with customers and shaking hands on a new Bühler Group Leybold Optics IBS 1400 coating machine, the Altechna team is back from Photonics West. And we’ve brought 4 key takeaways from a technological standpoint to share with you! 🔵 Our talk on advanced high-energy laser optics was buzzing. We were thrilled to showcase our hydroxide-catalysis-bonded components, introducing new Altechna's capabilities and sparking lively discussions on durability and outgassing. 🔵 Diode-pumped laser technologies stood out, too. But one thing was made clear – to make progress in diode brightness, the industry needs to reconsider long-standing assumptions and explore alternative approaches. 🔵 Fiber‑based lasers and components kept attracting attention. Despite their maturity and strong performance, fully fiber‑integrated systems still face major challenges in high‑power and high‑energy applications. Thermal load, nonlinear effects, and damage thresholds become limiting factors, which means that free‑space optics (bulk optics) remain an essential part of these systems with growing demand in certain high‑power areas where fiber alone cannot handle the required performance. 🔵 Finally, we witnessed a breakthrough in VUV laser sources. IPG unveiled a high-coherence 148 nm VUV laser, tackling a 50-year physics challenge in spectroscopy of the ²²⁹Th nuclear transition. It was great to see so many people enjoy the event: for many talks, visitors were queuing up in the hallways, and Altechna’s booth was at the epicentre of Photonics West 2026. Coming up next: 📍 APE 2026 - Asia Photonics Expo | February 4-6 | #C214 📍 Laser World of Photonics China | March 18-20 | #N4-4615