Skip to Content
G&H Centaur device featuring a compact cylindrical housing with a white body and metallic blue end caps, showing the G&H logo and labeled ports.

Centaur Series Pockels Cells (KD*P)

Made with the highest purity KD*P, grown in our own facilities, the Centaur Series™ Pockels cells provide reliable and high-quality performance with more than 98.5% transmission from 300–1100 nm.

Full Product Description
End of Life (EOL):
Yes
Optical material:
KD*P
Material purity:
99%
Wavelength:
300–1100 nm
Contrast Ratio:
>4000:1
Active Aperture:
8–25 mm
Repetition Rate:
2 kHz
Single Pass Distortion:
<λ/10 @ 1064 nm
Q-switching:
Yes
Pulse Picker:
Yes

Need a product customized?

We can customize our products to fit your requirements.

Find out more

Product description

End of Life (EOL) - Last Time Buy

One of the challenges of manipulating laser pulses is handling the inherent high energies that can easily damage materials. Impurities in optical crystals are a severe limitation to the optical power that a Pockels cell can endure and that's why we grow the highest purity KD*P crystals (99%) for use in our Pockels cells.

The Centaur Series utilizes the finest strain-free, highly deuterated KD*P available on the market, grown in our facility in Cleveland, OH, USA. The low loss KD*P crystal, as well as high damage threshold solgel and dielectric AR coatings, results in high optical damage resistance Pockels cell, needed for reliable laser intracavity use.

The sealed, nitrogen-filled, compact design with ceramic apertures and premium UV-grade fused silica windows, wedged or plano parallel, ensures high transmission and contrast ratios over its long lifetime. The housing of the Pockels cell incorporates standard pin-type HV connectors that provide a quick connection for simplified system design and assembly.

The Centaur series is a dimensional drop-in replacement for the industry standard QX series Pockels cell.

Options

Threaded HV connectors

Applications

  • Q-switching and Pulse-picking in larger footprint systems
  • Power control
  • Drop-in replacements for QX series applications

Key features

  • Dimensional drop-in replacement for the QX series Pockels cells
  • Intrinsic contrast ratio >4000:1 (37 dB intracavity loss when flashlamp-pumping)
  • Voltage contrast ratio >3500:1 (34 dB pulse picking efficiency)
  • LIDT >10 J/cm² (1064 nm, 10 ns pulse length, 10 Hz repetition rate)
  • Nitrogen backfilled ensuring a long lifetime

Specifications

NameValue
End of Life (EOL)Yes
Optical materialKD*P
Material purity99%
Wavelength300–1100 nm
Contrast Ratio>4000:1
Active Aperture8–25 mm
Repetition Rate2 kHz
Single pass insertion loss<1%@1064 nm
Voltage contrast ratio (VCR)>3500:1 @ 1064 nm (parallel polarizers)
Single Pass Distortion<λ/10 @ 1064 nm
Capacitance (DC)6 pF
DC quarter-wave voltage3–5 kV @ 1064 nm
LIDT> 10 J/cm² (1064 nm, 10 ns pulse, 10 Hz, 1 mm diameter)
Operating temperature15°–45° C
Storage temperature-55°–85° C
HumidityNon-condensing environment
Duty cycle<5%
Q-switchingYes
Pulse PickerYes

NOTE: All Specifications above are "Typical Performance" values.

Typical specificationsCQX 8(EOL)CQX 9.25(EOL)CQX 12.3(EOL)CQX 15.5(EOL)CQX 25
Hard aperture diameter8 mm 9.25 mm12.3 mm 15.5 mm25 mm
10-90% rise time (theoretical) into 50 Ω line0.8 ns0.8 ns1.1 ns 1.1 ns 1.1 ns