About the authors 7

Report objectives 8

Companies cited 9

Acronyms 10

Executive summary 11

Introduction to Edge Emitting Laser (EEL) diode 39

Edge Emitting Laser (EEL) diode market 52

• Global Market Analysis
  •  Key market highlights per domain of application
  • 2017-2024 market volume (Munits)
  • 2017-2024 market revenue ($M)
• Market Analysis by Application
• EEL ASP Aspect

Edge Emitting Laser (EEL) applications

Optical communication 80

• Fiber optic communication (FOC)
• Benefits of fiber optics over metallic-based systems
• Optical fiber technology
• Analog vs. digital signals
• 4-Level pulse amplitude modulation: PAM4 technology
• Optical transceiver

Optical communication trends 112

• Technological trends
• Market trends
• Drivers of optical communication technologies
• Data centers

Optical Communication – Silicon photonics 126

Medical applications 132

• Focus on ophtalmology
• Focus on dermatology
• Focus on surgery
• Focus on dentistry

Material processing 149

Kilowatt material processing applications 153

• Focus on metal cutting
• Focus on metal welding/brazing
• Focus on cladding

Micro material processing applications (including marking) 163

• Focus on metal cutting
• Focus on fine metal and other low power material processing
• Focus on semiconductor material processing
• Focus on flat panel display material processing
• Focus on marking and engraving
• Focus on additive manufacturing (3D printing)
• From IR to blue laser in some applications

Sensing applications 180

• Fiber optic sensing and telecom instrumentation
• Ultrafast laser spectroscopy and Mid-IR spectroscopy
• Flow cytometry and machine Vision
• LiDAR and mobile 3D sensing

Display & lighting 207

• Display (applications, RGB laser sources)
• Lighting (automotive lighting)

New applications

• Emerging applications – Overview

Edge Emitting Laser (EEL) technology 225

• Semiconductor laser – EEL vs. VCSEL (vs. LED) – Classification, attributes
• The different possible designs of EELs
• Semiconductor laser structures – Basics, principles of operations, lasing modes
• Absorption spectrum
• The case of EEL as a pump laser (vs. direct laser source)
• Challenges: Epitaxy, front-end device processing, high volume manufacturing
• Application requirements

Edge Emitting Laser (EEL) industry 261

• Players mapping
• Players positioning
• Levels of integration: Wafer, Package, System
• Supply/Value chain aspects
• Recent Trends

EEL MARKET – STILL DRIVEN BY TRADITIONAL APPLICATIONS BUT SOME POTENTIAL KILLER APPLICATIONS ARE EMERGING

Since the development of lasers in the 1960s, they have been increasingly used in a large number of applications. This has propelled the laser market to a trillion dollar business since the 1990s. Nowadays, laser technologies are ubiquitous in plenty of traditional, as well as emerging, applications. These span material processing, optical communications, automotive front lighting, medical surgery and 3D sensing. The laser landscape is highly fragmented, with a wide variety of laser types, including diode lasers, fiber lasers, diode-pumped solid state lasers (DPSSLs), CO₂ lasers and excimer lasers. Traditional applications cover industrial, scientific, consumer markets, but there are also many peculiar applications including military and biomedical markets with spectroscopic analysis.

In this report, we focus on semiconductor lasers, especially Edge Emitting Lasers (EELs). This laser light source has revolutionized the concept of laser systems that lead to new specific attributes including miniaturized devices, stabilized coherent light and narrow emission wavelengths.

In practice, EELs can be used as “direct” lasers but also coupled with optical fibers or crystals to make fiber-lasers or DPSSLs. The advanced laser technologies then provide specific advantages such as better beam quality, improved stability in terms of laser noise, and increased power output.

In 2018, EELs represented a $2.5B market opportunity and this figure is likely to reach $5.1B in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate for the period (CAGR_2018-2024) of 13%. Growth will continue to be driven by the optical communication segment, such as optical systems for datacom and telecom. This is the largest segment today for EELs, comprising 56% of total revenue for 2018. Material processing and display applications are also substantial, making up 16% and 14% of the market respectively in 2018. However, their market shares will decline in the future as 3D sensing in LiDAR, and face/gesture recognition, medical and lighting applications emerge in the next five years. Those might represent potential killer applications for EELs in the middle/long term.

On the other hand, traditional applications such as printing and optical storage decline rapidly with “digitalization” and “all in the cloud” trends.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of major EEL applications: optical communication, material processing, medical, sensing, and printing, display, optical storage and lighting. It highlights the global landscape for EELs, including classification of EEL types by application and market segmentation. Detailed market forecasts are presented based on this segmentation.

NO SINGLE INDUSTRIAL PLAYER CAN TARGET ALL APPLICATIONS – TOO MANY DIFFERENT SPECIFICATIONS

The EEL business has a bright future but represent also a challenging market for the industry. There is a large variety of applications and system and device specifications, as well as a strong competitive landscape at the technology level, between direct diodes, fiber lasers, CO₂ laser, DPSSLs and excimer lasers.

Consequently, the EEL industry is highly fragmented and diversified. Each application addresses a specific supply/value chain, and different positions have to be developed by industrials to access different markets. Leading players in the material processing domain are vertically integrated from EEL device to laser system, for example making laser dicers, as customers require turnkey solutions for their specific manufacturing process. For sensing or lighting applications, the trend is for companies to be much more specialized, as in pure EEL device manufacturers, as there are still plenty of challenges at device level with increasing performance, beam shaping, and decreasing cost. Another good example is the datacom industry, which highlights a diversity of positioning along the supply chain.

This report presents an analysis of the EEL industry, highlighting global trends, detailing the supply chain and key players for major applications, as well as business models and recent mergers and acquisitions.

EACH APPLICATION REQUIRES ITS OWN EEL TECHNOLOGY – A VARIETY OF POSSIBLE DESIGNS

EELs are complex photonic devices and different device designs have been developed:

• Chip: Fabry Perot (FP) is the most common design of EEL in use. Other designs such as Distributed Bragg Reflectors (DBRs), Distributed Feedback (DFB) and Broad Area Laser Diodes (BALDs), have been designed improving parameters that make them suitable for specific applications.
• Package: there is also a wide range of package types including TO can, butterfly, pigtail and direct chip on submount, depending on the application.

For the integrators questions may arise across wide ranges of parameters. What is the right laser device for my application? Which parameters are most important? Applications define device specifications and several technical parameters must be taken into account, including wavelength, power output, spectral resolution, light beam quality and optical intensity.

Understanding the application requirement and evaluating EEL parameters is therefore key to make the right decisions in terms of investments. This is even more important as EEL price varies widely depending on design and technical parameters.

This report presents a detailed analysis of EEL technology, detailing different possible designs and their pros/cons as well as their usage, challenges at manufacturing level, key attributes/parameters and suitability with the different applications.

3SPTechnologies, Access Pacific Ltd., Adtech Optics, Advanced Laser Diode Systems, Akela Laser Corp., Allwave Lasers, Alpes Lasers, Amonics, Applied Optoelectronics, Arima Lasers, Bright Solutions, Broadcom, Brolis Semiconductors, BWT, Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre – Unit of National Research Council of Canada, Changchun New Industries (CNI) Optoelectronics Technology, Coherent – DILAS – Rofin-Sinar Technologies, Compound Photonics, CST Global Ltd, DenseLight Semiconductors Pte., Diode Laser Concepts, Eagleyard Photonics, Eblana Photonics, Egismos Technology, Emcore, Fiibercom, FITEL – Furukawa, Focuslight, Gooch & Housego, Hamamatsu, II-VI – Finisar, II-VI Laser Enterprise, Innolume, Innovative Photonic Solutions, InPhenix, Intense Photonics, IPG Photonics, Jenoptik, Laserline, LaserMaxDefense, LasersCom, Lasertel, LDX Optronics, Lumentum – Oclaro, Lumics, Masimo Semiconductor, Mitsubishi Electric, Modulight , Monocrom, nanoplus, Necsel , Newport Corp. – MKS Instruments, Nichia, nLIGHT Corporation, NOLATECH, Norcada, Norlase, Northrop Grumman Cutting Edge Optronics (CEO), OPTOENERGY, Optoway Technology , OSI Laser Diode, Osram, Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions Co., PD-LD, Pegasus Laser systeme, Photodigm, QD Laser, QPC Lasers, QSI, Quantel , Quantum Light Instruments , Redfern Integrated Optics (RIO), Rohm, Sacher Lasertechnik LLC, Seminex, Sharp, Sheaumann Laser, SLD Laser, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Source Photonics, Sumitomo Electric, Thorlabs, Toptica Photonics, Trumpf, UnikLasers, Union Optronics, Ushio Opto Semiconductors, Vescent Photonics, Vortran Laser Technology , Wavespectrum Laser, World Star Tech, WTD, XLT HIGH POWER Semiconductor Lasers, Z-Laser Optoelektronik, and more.