During the 1980’s, scientists and engineers at Kigre, Inc. pioneered the development of diffuse reflector solid-state laser pump chambers. In comparison to specular reflector pump chambers, Kigre’s pump chambers were much smaller and offered nearly double the efficiency. Kigre’s barium sulfate based diffuse reflector offered much higher reflectivity and pumping uniformity than any other pump chamber on the market.

The heart of Kigre’s pump chambers was the filter tube, which was fabricated out of Kigre’s strengthened rare-earth-doped silicate glasses. Doped with Ce3+ and/or Sm3+, these filter tubes filtered UV, unusable visible and IR regions of the flashlamp spectra, reducing thermal induced lensing and birefringence, and in some cases, eliminating ASE and parasitic oscillations. A portion of the absorbed energy was re-emitted in useful pump bands, further improving efficiency. The “FC” in Kigre’s nomenclature stands for Fluorescent Converting.

Although Kigre discontinued its pump chamber line several years ago, MegaWatt Lasers, Inc. now offers exact reproductions of Kigre’s popular pump chamber designs. Manufactured using Kigre’s drawings and specifications, these pump chambers are ideal replacements for existing laser systems. For new lasers, we recommend using MegaWatt Lasers, Inc. current designs.