I dont think that this is the reason that Lithuania became so "brave".Last month, some users claimed on Twitter that Lithuania dared to "provoke" China because of its technological advantages in the field of optical equipment-lasers, optical parametric amplifiers and transient absorption produced by Lithuania's Light Conversion Company. Spectrum is widely used by top universities in China. Among them, the optical parametric amplifier is truly a card-neck product like the chip. The user stated that Lithuania can sanction one-third of scientific research projects in physical materials and chemistry in the Natural Science Foundation of China. A further public search revealed that similar claims had been circulating on Zhihu as early as August this year.
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Is it clear that Light Conversion monopolizes the Chinese market?
Light Conversion was established in 1994 in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, backed by the Vilnius University Laser Research Center. It is an internationally renowned manufacturer of optical equipment. In 2016, it opened a branch in China and officially entered the Chinese market. The company's product catalog shows that its optical parametric amplifiers (optical parametric amplifiers) mainly have two models, TOPAS and ORPHEUS. Among them, TOPAS has been put into production as early as the 1990s.
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According to the official website of Light Laser, TOPAS was designed by Romualdas Danielius, the company's chief scientist. Due to its popularity, TOPAS has even become a proper term in academia. Indeed, if you search for the keyword "topas optical parametric amplifier" on Google Scholar, you can find a lot of related research mentioning TOPAS.
A public search found that many domestic colleges and universities do use optical parametric amplifiers produced by Light Laser. For example, in 2017, the School of Physics and Electronics of Central South University purchased the ORPHEUS optical parametric amplifier produced by Laite Laser. The “Reason for Application” column stated that there are currently no optical parametric amplifier manufacturers with symbols and requirements in China, and Light Laser’s ORPHEUS has high stability and excellent performance. "Public Procurement Solicitation" shows that the price of this ORPHEUS is 43,500 euros, which is equivalent to about 310,000 yuan.
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In 2018, the Department of Chemistry of Zhejiang University also purchased a PHAROS femtosecond laser and its supporting optical parametric amplifier.
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He Peng, PhD in optical engineering from Xidian University, commented on the aforementioned users' answers that there are 1,000 optical parametric amplifiers produced by Light Laser in China. The Investigation from a doctoral student in optics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences led to the understanding that most of the optical parametric amplifiers used in domestic university laboratories come from Lite Laser.
Can Light Conversion sanction Chinese research projects?
It has to be admitted that the statement that "Lite Laser's optical parametric amplifier monopolizes the Chinese market" is not an exaggeration. However, it is worth noting that the application of optical parametric amplifiers is actually very limited. Except for scientific research projects involving femtosecond laser experiments, it is almost invisible in the civilian field. Therefore, the market demand for optical parametric amplifiers is small and large. Very limited.
In addition, the design and manufacture of the optical parametric amplifier itself does not involve the "stuck neck" technology. On the contrary, the technology itself is quite mature.
The optical parametric amplifier is a device that uses the nonlinear interaction of parameters to achieve laser wavelength conversion, and needs to be used in conjunction with the laser. In addition to the femtosecond optical parametric amplifier mentioned above, picosecond optical parametric amplifiers are also widely used. The main manufacturer of this picosecond optical parametric amplifier is another company with Lithuanian genes-EKSPLA.
Qian Shixiong and Wang Gongming called the optical parametric amplification process "a typical three-wave mixing process" in the book "Nonlinear Optics-Principles and Progress". To put it simply, a strong pump light with a higher frequency and a weak signal light with a lower frequency are simultaneously input into the corresponding non-linear crystal, and produce difference frequency optical radiation, that is, an idle frequency light wave (idler).
Shen Yuanyang concluded in his article "Fifty Years of Nonlinear Optics" that the development of nonlinear optics can be roughly divided into three different periods: 1961-1965, when new nonlinear optical effects appeared in large numbers; 1965-1969 At the same time as the emergence of new nonlinear optical effects, scientists are committed to studying the effects that have been discovered, and focusing on the development of related optical devices; after 1970, nonlinear optical research further expanded its dimensions and scope of application.
It can be said that as of today, both the theory of nonlinear optics and the research on optical parametric amplification have been very mature, and there is no excessive theoretical barrier. In fact, many outstanding Chinese scholars have produced a wealth of academic papers and works in this field, and some domestic research teams have also developed their own optical parametric amplifiers. For example, among the three optical parametric amplifiers currently held by Peking University, one is self-made by the physical chemistry laboratory.
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The above-mentioned doctoral students pointed out that the relatively low cost and the binding relationship with laser manufacturers in many other countries will help Lithuanian enterprises to form a monopoly in the field of optical parametric amplifier manufacturing.
Indeed, Laite Laser is not the only brand selling optical parametric amplifiers. For example, in the results of the instrument query of the Peking University laboratory, after checking the “High Energy Optical Parametric Amplifier” purchased in 2014, it was found that the manufacturer of the instrument was a US company named “Coherent, Inc.”. But the model is the TOPAS mentioned above, designed by Professor Danielius. The TOPAS of Coherent Company is closely related to the TOPAS of Light Laser.
Coincidentally, in November 2020, Fudan University purchased an optical parametric amplifier from Spectra-Physics, a subsidiary of Newport Corporation, and also reached a close cooperation with LightTech Laser in the form of "OEM".
The aforementioned doctoral student stated that, under normal circumstances, optical parametric amplifiers will be packaged and sold to laboratories with more expensive lasers for subsequent supporting use and after-sales maintenance. Therefore, although the production of lasers is still in the hands of Coherence and
At present, the optical parametric amplifier has not been put into mass production in China. On the one hand, the reasons for market demand have already been mentioned; on the other hand, the retail price of optical components is high. At this stage, even if they are manufactured and sold, they do not have a price advantage compared to Lithuanian enterprises that have formed a complete system. . Therefore, if Chinese companies want to take over the production and manufacture of optical parametric amplifier batons from Lithuanian companies, the most important thing to overcome is not so much technical difficulties, but rather perfecting the industrial chain and compressing the production of supporting components under the premise of ensuring quality and cost.
In summary, the optical parametric amplifier produced by Light Laser in Lithuania has a good reputation in the market and is widely used by various academic research institutions, regardless of whether it is on a global scale or in China. However, the statement that "optical parametric amplifier is a card-neck product like a chip" is an overstatement: related theories and technologies are already very mature, but due to their narrow use and limited market demand, large-scale production has not yet been formed in China. Formed the appearance of "monopoly".
Nevertheless, a good example of why globalisation and "free trade" is such bs. China should strictly implement a "Buy Chinese products" policy for its public procurement (gov, institutions, education etc). No more of this, buy foreign, bs.
At the very least, tariffs should be increased in these specialised fields so that domestic companies will have market space in order to develop their products
