The high technology company TRUMPF presented the products and applications offered by its new business field, TRUMPF Photonic Components, for the first time at the LASER trade show in Munich. They include sensors to support autonomous driving and components for facial recognition functions such as those already integrated in more than half a billion smartphones worldwide.
“In the past few months, we have expanded our portfolio of laser products and technologies in areas of strategic importance, thus underpinning our claim to technological leadership,” says TRUMPF CEO Laser Technology Christian Schmitz. “Creating new business fields enables us to gain a foothold in new market segments with a demand for advanced technology and in which we have identified substantial growth potential.”
Automatic optical inspection in laser diode production TRUMPF Photonic Components in Ulm
TRUMPF’s growing laser technology product family
The creation of TRUMPF Photonic Components, with its focus on a special type of diode laser known as the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), gives the company access to a new market segment that will complement its existing high-power diode laser business. In VCSEL technology, the diodes emit light perpendicularly to the surface of the semiconductor device, unlike conventional edge-emitting diodes where the laser light is propagated horizontally to one or two end faces of the device. These laser diodes, which TRUMPF presented for the first time at the trade show in Munich, are used in smartphones, in digital data transfer applications and in sensors for autonomous driving.
By adding VCSEL diodes to its range of semiconductor-based laser sources, TRUMPF has taken a decisive step forward in its business strategy. The company’s laser technology product portfolio has also been expanded in other areas in recent months, for instance with new ultrashort-pulse lasers based on InnoSlab technology and new low-power CO2 lasers.
