The industrial environment has many diverse uses for laser diodes, ranging from light barriers to laser measuring instrumentation (such as distance sensors) to fast data transfer - with further interesting applications materializing on an almost daily basis. In the design of circuits engineers have a number of concerns, these being not only stable operation and the protection the laser diode against external interference but also that the laser class is maintained during operation and in the event of error.

When designing laser drivers fluctuations in temperature and voltage must be compensated for in order to ensure constant laser power of the diode in CW or pulse operation. Integrated laser driver circuits provide a sound basis for fast and safe design, with a broad selection of devices available to drive N, P or M type laser diodes with currents of up to ca. 350 mA and frequencies of up to 150 MHz.
In order to make the selection and design of driver circuits easier for developers iC-Haus has posted a wide range of application tools online. Besides application notes and specialist articles there is also a web seminar which can be accessed online at any time. This seminar teaches the basics of safe laser diode driving.

Our application support has now been extended further to include a new application report containing fourteen example circuits, tips on dimensioning and example calculations for all standard laser diodes. This provides engineers of laser drivers with plenty of valuable information on how to design circuits safely and quickly. In combination with suitable drivers CW drive and analog modulation are calculated in detail using examples. This helps to save time and money in the circuit design.