SLF Svenska Laserfabriken AB

SLF Svenska Laserfabriken AB is a start-up company founded by researchers at KTH. The company focuses on commercialisation of nonlinear optics.

If you think about a laser, it will have a colour. This colour might be red, green or blue but the important thing is that it is a single colour. This is actually one of the great things about lasers. However, let's say you have a blue laser but, for whatever reason, you really need an orange laser. Therefore, you go to the store to buy an orange laser but apparently there are no orange lasers. This is where nonlinear optics comes in. You take the blue laser that you already have, add a colour changer based on nonlinear optics and out comes the orange laser light. No need to buy a new laser, just buy a colour changer for your laser instead!

We have developed new and improved types of these colour changers for lasers. They are the result of decades of research at KTH and are better in many ways than what is currently available. They are needed in many different applications ranging from quantum technology and gas sensing to medical surgery.

One example: In surgery today, one often use scalpels. They are sharp but the tissue around the incision is still stretched and damaged slightly. One could also use some of the standard lasers but they are effectively burning through the tissue rather then cutting it. However, with our colour changers it is possible to take a laser that delivers its energy during short time windows and change the colour, or wavelength, to one that is highly absorbed by water. This is great since humans are essentially full of water. Nonetheless, these laser pulses will deposit all their energy into the tissue faster than the heat can travel in the tissue. This means that the tissue is evaporated away rather than burnt which results in much less damage and scarring.

This is just one of many application where our colour changers could make a difference.