Product News

February 14, 2022

Meet Prima, PicoQuant’s new multiple color pulsed diode laser

The stand alone, compact laser module provides three individual wavelengths at an affordable price

In a recent webinar, PicoQuant has unveiled its latest laser innovation: the stand alone, fully computer controlled laser module Prima. “Our objective when developing Prima was to offer a solution to a common challenge faced by many researchers. They often need more than a single excitation wavelength to study all of their samples, but buying multiple lasers can become quite expensive. So we tapped our 25 years of expertise in laser development to create an affordable, compact module that can emit red, green, and blue light”, says Guillaume Delpont, Product Manager at PicoQuant.

January 13, 2022

Back at Photonics West in San Francisco

PicoQuant presents Prima, a multicolor pulsed diode laser, and a new feature for the MultiHarp 160 event timer & TCSPC unit

We are very excited to be back in San Francisco at the SPIE Photonics West with a large team of experts and application specialists to meet and talk in person with the photonics community. Two of our highlights are: Prima, a diode laser module that provides access to three individual wavelengths in either picosecond pulsed or continuous wave mode and the introduction of multifunctional on-board event filters for the MultiHarp 160 event timer.

Prima is a stand alone, fully computer controlled laser module, which generates laser light at 635, 510, and 450 nm with each color being emitted individually one at a time. Prima is a solution to a common challenge faced by many researchers. They often need more than a single excitation wavelength to study all of their samples, but buying multiple lasers can become quite expensive. “So we tapped our 25 years of expertise in laser development to create an affordable, compact module that can emit red, green, and blue light, covering most of the excitation needs for daily lab tasks, such as lifetime or quantum yield measurements, photoluminescence, and fluorescence”, says Guillaume Delpont, Product Manager at PicoQuant.

The new feature for the MultiHarp 160, a scalable plug-and-play event time and Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) unit is user definable on-board event filters which allow to efficiently reduce the file sizes and amount of data sent via the data interfaces (USB, external FPGA interface). The MultiHarp 160 is optimized for applications requiring up to 64 timing channels with high sustained count rates, an outstanding time resolution of 5 ps and ultra short dead time of less than 650 ps.

We will also host our traditional Single Molecule Spectroscopy and Super-resolution Microscopy session at the BiOS conference and we have a lot of great scientific contributions lined up.

Drop by our booths to learn more about our latest products or for a chat with our experts.
BiOS exhibition: booth #8315
Photonics West exhibition: booth #3315

October 25, 2021

PicoQuant expands its VisUV/IR laser line up

The UV and high-power laser modules are now fully remote controlled and feature a new model emitting at 1950 nm

The VisUV/VisIR laser modules from PicoQuant have undergone a few in-depth hardware changes.While the classic VisUV/VisIR laser modules were manually controlled through a series of switches and dials on the device’s front panel, devices from the new generation are now fully remote controllable via a variety of interfaces. They can be directly connected to a PC via USB interface or to a Sepia PDL 828 laser driver through a PicoQuant proprietary interface. In both cases, the laser module is fully controlled via an intuitive graphical user interface running under WindowsTM. Serial connect via an additional RS-232 interface is also available.

Additionally, two new models have joined the high-power VisIR laser series to expand its covered emission range towards the mid-infrared (MIR) at 1950 nm. Based on a novel fiber amplifier technology, these lasers can be offered with either collimated free beam or a fiber output and deliver an average output power of more than 0.5 W with pulse duration below 100 ps FWHM. The compact form factor and flexible repetition rates with constant pulse parameters make those models of particular interest for metrology and ranging measurements as well as for testing and calibration of detectors and cameras in the NIR/MIR region.

Product page: VisUV/VisIR laser modules

August 3, 2021

PicoQuant and Seven Solutions jointly release white paper on synchronizing TCSPC units in a White Rabbit timing network

Free paper demonstrates impact of synchronization on time accuracy of MultiHarp devices connected by switches

In a recent paper, researchers from PicoQuant have demonstrated that synchronizing Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) devices in a White Rabbit timing network has only a negligible effect on their time accuracy. Multiple devices from PicoQuant’s MultiHarp product line were connected using Low Jitter White Rabbit switches from Seven Solutions the leading manufacturer of White Rabbit components. The authors have investigated how various network topologies, optical fiber lengths, and presence of Ethernet traffic affects the time accuracy of connected MultiHarp 150 and MultiHarp 160 devices.

June 29, 2021

PicoQuant improves the MultiHarp 150’s temporal resolution

Latest firmware and software updates improve the temporal resolution to 5 ps for the high-throughput multichannel event timer

PicoQuant is releasing a free firmware update for several models of its MultiHarp 150 high-throughput multichannel event timers. A major feature of this update is the improvement of the temporal resolution from 10 to 5 ps for the MultiHarp 150 4P, 8P, and 16P, without affecting other parameters like the excellent data throughput or the system's ultrashort dead time. Another new feature the update provides is a programmable input hysteresis for noise suppression in difficult environments. These MultiHarp 150 models provide the best temporal resolution on the market for event timers featuring sub-nanosecond dead time, which makes these devices an ideal choice of TCSPC electronics for fast and precise fluorescence lifetime imaging (rapidFLIM) and high throughput multichannel photon correlation.