Alpes Lasers can now offer Broad Gain Interband  Cascade Laser (ICL) chips for use in External cavity systems. ICL allow emission in at shorter wavelengths than traditional QCL which are particularly interesting for hydrocarbon detection. The initially offered chip covers the range 3.2-3.6 um (2820-3070 cm-1) which contains interesting absorption lines for CH4, C2H6, HCl, CH2O (formaldehyde) in particular.

Using the lightweigth and small size intrinsic to QCL systems, researchers at EMPA have demonstrated a new Compact and lightweight mid-infrared laser spectrometer for balloon-borne water vapor measurements. This comes on top of their previous achievement of mounting a QCL on a drone!

A group at the TU Wien and Friedrich-Alexander University, who are partners with Alpes Lasers through the Hydroptics and WaterSpy project, have recently published a paper titled "Polarimetric Balanced Detection: Background-Free Mid-IR Evanescent Field Laser Spectroscopy for Low-Noise, Long-term Stable Chemical Sensing" which uses a QC-XT laser from Alpes Lasers to measure water quality in situ at the Prato water treatment plant in Genova, Italy.