We support the KATANA and KATANA HP pulsed platform and related Onefive and NKT Photonics systems, including Origami, SuperK and Koheras. Call us when the configuration is uncertain or the platform is no longer supported. Every job starts with the labels, and you get written findings before any repair.
KATANA originated with Onefive GmbH in Regensdorf, Switzerland, as a compact, alignment-free pulsed laser module. Onefive was acquired by NKT Photonics, and the associated product line subsequently moved within Hamamatsu Photonics. Hamamatsu’s published application material identifies the KATANA HP family as obsolete.
For an owner, the practical consequence is that configuration information for a specific serial number can be hard to reassemble, and that is where our evaluations start. These modules were chosen because they are reliable and need no alignment, and a good number of them are still in service.
We are not the manufacturer and we do not present ourselves as one. We are an independent engineering team working at component level on the subsystems inside these instruments.
This is the single most useful thing to get right before contacting anyone about a KATANA. In the published KATANA HP family, the number identifies the wavelength band, not the power class. A laboratory that reads the number as a power rating will describe its system incorrectly, and every conclusion drawn from that description will be wrong.
| Designation | Published wavelength band | Typical role |
|---|---|---|
| KATANA 05 HP | 512 to 532 nm | High-power visible source, excitation and general visible work |
| KATANA 06 HP | 556 to 620 nm | Visible excitation |
| KATANA 08 HP | 775 nm | STED depletion source, paired with a visible excitation unit |
| KATANA 10 HP | 1012 to 1320 nm, commonly 1030 to 1064 nm | Infrared fundamental, and the pump for downstream conversion |
| KATANA 15 HP | 1550 nm | Telecom-band infrared |
Band definitions vary slightly between manufacturer documents across model years, and units were built to order. Use this to read your label, not as a specification for your serial number.
The HP family was designed for multi-wavelength operation, with master and slave triggering and external trigger inputs so that two units could be synchronized. In STED microscopy that pairing is the standard arrangement: a visible excitation source and a 775 nm depletion source running together under one experiment.
Laboratories very often hold such a pair under a single instrument record. When one unit develops a fault, the model number on the record may belong to the other unit, or to the controller of one and the head of the other. We ask for every module label separately for exactly this reason.
We provide independent service and repair support across the platform. Configuration, parts access and required metrology decide the scope of a given job, and we confirm both with you before anything ships.
Send us your configuration and we will confirm the scope. On this platform the label, the controller revision and the presence or absence of a conversion stage matter more than the family name, and we would rather tell you at the enquiry stage that a system is outside what we can usefully evaluate than after you have paid to ship it.
Alignment-free, sealed pulsed modules do not fail the way an open resonator fails. The failures concentrate in a predictable set of subsystems, and that is what makes independent component-level work viable on an obsolete platform.
The pulse originates here. A degraded seed or a failed seed driver produces a system that behaves normally in every electrical and timing respect while delivering no usable optical output.
Driver failures, protection trips and degraded pump diodes. Frequently silent, with the control layer reporting no error while holding a limited state.
Splices, pump combiners, isolators, mode-field adaptors and delivery fiber. Damage at a single interface removes the output without leaving any electrical trace.
Monitor photodiode, its conditioning, the converter stages and the control loop. A healthy laser reporting a false low value, and a dead laser reporting a healthy one, are both seen.
Crystal condition, oven and temperature control, polarization and conversion efficiency. Assessed only once the fundamental actually arriving at the stage has been measured.
TEC modules and drivers, fans, temperature sensors and cooling paths. A thermal fault commonly presents as a silent power limit rather than as a temperature alarm.
Serial and software control including MATLAB-driven setups, readback values that are echoes rather than measurements, and command paths that stop before the hardware.
Internal protection conditions limiting output with no warning presented to the operator. Worth eliminating early, because it is the cheapest branch to test.
The most common presentation on this platform, by a wide margin, is a system whose control and timing functions are intact while optical power generation is absent or strongly suppressed. The detailed reasoning for that case is set out on the KATANA 10 HP page.
Send the model, a photograph of the product label and the symptoms. We review it and respond with the next step.
PhaseX Laser Services is an independent third-party service provider and is not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Onefive, NKT Photonics, Hamamatsu Photonics or any other manufacturer unless expressly stated in writing. Brand names and model names are used only to identify equipment for which customers may request evaluation.
The scientific laser evaluation request form collects all of this in one submission.
Configuration verification and the full diagnostic decision tree for the low-output case.
Read the pageSeed, amplifier chain and pulse-train diagnostics across picosecond platforms.
Read the pageHow a conversion stage is actually tested, and why it is so often blamed for an upstream fault.
Read the pageWhat remains possible after end-of-support, and where the real limits are.
Read the pageOn the KATANA platform the configuration is the first unknown and everything else depends on it. Send photographs of every module label, your normal operating parameters, and what you actually measured. We will tell you whether an evaluation is worth your shipping cost.
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