Led Optimised For Short-Term Intense Illumination

The Optoflash is the newest member of the Cairn OptoLED family. Using their established LED and microscope coupling designs, it is optimised for short-term intense illumination. Under these conditions the temperature of the LED chip fluctuates considerably, affecting its optical efficiency. No amount of external cooling or heatsinking can mitigate this effect, but this is one area where their established optical feedback system really comes into its own, as it controls the instantaneous current levels to maintain a constant optical output during the pulse.

Protection networks built into the LED heads set the maximum transient and steady-state currents according to the safe operating characteristics of each LED, thereby allowing the full performance capabilities of the LED to be safely achieved. Flash durations of 50 microseconds to 100 millseconds can be set via the front panel controls, or indefinitely longer periods can be set manually or via external control.