Come see our webcast on the market for lasers operating in the mid-infrared range.  Well, actually only my part is about the market.  The other part will be presented by the esteemed Jeff Hecht about mid-IR laser technologies and trends.  The webcast is Wednesday, April 20, and archived for those who are away on Spring vacation.

The figure below shows our market forecast for all mid-IR lasers under 1 kilowatt.  I qualified it a bit because big honking kilowatt CO2 lasers comprise a large part of the market.    I should also say here that we defined the range for our market report from about 1.8 microns to about 15 microns. 

















The growth in the figure comes partly from the recovery from the recession, and partly from new growth in military and sensing applications.  The new growth is the result of a fortunate convergence of new demands (e.g., for environmental monitoring) and new technology solutions (e.g., GaSb diode lasers, quantum cascade lasers, and new fiber and solid-state lasers). 

By the way, we counted over 50 companies making mid-IR lasers of some kind, and most of them are headquartered in North America.  None has a significant market share across multiple segments.

The webcast will be produced thanks to the sponsors, ILX Lightwave and IPG Photonics.