Independent evaluation and repair for the KATANA 10 HP picosecond platform. Call us when output has collapsed, a setpoint no longer changes the beam, or the model designation does not match what the system is doing. The configuration is verified from the physical labels first, and you get written findings before any repair.
More KATANA evaluations go wrong at this step than at any point later. The model designation a laboratory has on record is frequently not the configuration sitting on the optical table, and on a platform that shipped in OEM and custom variants, that difference changes the entire diagnostic approach.
In the published Onefive KATANA HP family, the model number identifies the wavelength band, not the output power. A system described as a 10 HP but producing green output is therefore a contradiction that has to be resolved before anything else is measured. It is normally one of four things:
Photographs of every product label, read individually: laser head, controller, power supply, and any separate conversion or trigger module, each showing the complete model and serial number. Photographs of the rear panels and connections. The original configuration documents if they still exist.
No repair quotation is finalized on this platform until the exact configuration has been confirmed from the physical equipment. A quotation written against the wrong configuration is worse than no quotation.
As published in Onefive and NKT Photonics KATANA HP material, the designation number corresponds to the output wavelength band. Use this to check what your label is actually telling you.
| Designation | Published wavelength band | Typical role |
|---|---|---|
| KATANA 05 HP | 512 to 532 nm (green) | High-power visible source, excitation and general visible work |
| KATANA 06 HP | 556 to 620 nm (orange) | Visible excitation |
| KATANA 08 HP | 775 nm | Depletion source in STED microscopy, 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 the manufacturer's own documents across model years, and individual units were built to order. Treat this table as an orientation aid for reading your label, not as a specification for your specific serial number.
| Parameter | Published platform behavior |
|---|---|
| Pulse duration | Approximately 30 ps to 10 ns, configuration dependent |
| Repetition rate | Pulse-on-demand up to approximately 100 MHz, continuously tunable |
| Triggering | Internal or external source, master or slave operation |
| Architecture | Seeded, amplified, alignment-free pulsed module |
| Visible high-power example | KATANA 05 HP at 532 nm published up to approximately 5 W and 5 µJ, with peak power in the hundreds of kilowatts |
Your unit's actual configuration takes precedence over any published family figure. Where original acceptance data exists, that is the reference we work against.
The platform name covers several generations and power classes, and the service implications differ.
For evaluation purposes the meaningful difference is not the marketing tier but what is physically inside the box: the seed architecture, the number of amplification stages, whether a wavelength-conversion stage is present, and whether the control electronics are the original generation or a later revision. Those are determined on the bench, not from the model name.
The system powers up and reports normally, but measured optical power is a small fraction of what the laboratory expects, or is so low it cannot be distinguished from none.
Commanding a new output or current value from the front panel or from software changes the displayed value, while measured optical power stays where it was. Covered in detail below.
Repetition rate and synchronization outputs behave normally. This confirms the timing electronics are running. It does not confirm that optical pulses exist, because the timing path and the optical generation path are separate.
Measurable infrared power at the fundamental with disproportionately low visible output. This is the genuine conversion-stage case, and it is distinguished from the others by the fundamental power actually reaching the stage.
Crystal oven temperature that will not settle, oscillates, or drifts against its setpoint. A different failure from a stage that simply holds a flat temperature.
Pump-current driver failures, protection trips, degraded pump diodes, or a fault in the amplification chain that the control layer does not report as an error.
Serial or software control that appears to work while the lower-level controller is unresponsive, and readback values that turn out to be echoes of commanded values rather than measurements.
An internal interlock or protection condition limiting power with no error, no warning and no alarm presented to the operator.
Send the model, a photograph of the product label and the symptoms. We review it and respond with the next step.
This is the pattern we are contacted about most on this platform. It is worth setting out because the intuitive conclusion costs money: owners order a conversion crystal, fit it, and the machine behaves exactly as it did.
Second-harmonic generation cannot produce more converted power than the fundamental delivered into it, and past that limit a well-matched stage converts most of what reaches it. So an efficient stage fed with very little leaves very little behind, and two small readings at one port describe a healthy stage starved of input just as readily as a failed one. On its own the pattern does not distinguish them, which is precisely why it is a poor basis for a parts order.
A flat crystal temperature points the same way rather than at the crystal. A temperature-stabilised oven exists to hold its setpoint; significant optical power passing through the crystal is a heat load the controller has to work against. Little or no arriving fundamental means little to work against, so a temperature that does not move when the command changes is consistent with an absent fundamental. Normal timing points the same way again: on a seeded, externally triggerable architecture the trigger and synchronisation electronics run whether or not the seed is emitting and the amplifier chain is delivering gain, so a clean repetition rate tells you the timing board is alive and nothing more. And systems of this generation frequently display a commanded setpoint rather than a sensed value, so a panel that reads correctly is not evidence that anything physical changed.
Every subsystem the pattern leaves open is in scope: the seed and its driver, the pump and its driver, the amplifier chain, the fibre path, the conversion stage itself, and the control and readback path in both directions — that last one because on this generation of controller a healthy laser reporting a false low value and a degraded laser reporting a healthy one are both seen. The conversion stage is included and is not assumed away.
You receive written findings naming the subsystem the fault sits in, before any repair is quoted, and nothing is repaired, substituted or modified without your written approval of the scope and the price. The instruments used on your system are named in that proposal with their calibration status, so you know what produced the figures in your report.
High conversion efficiency is achievable in a well-matched stage. One published example, in a different system and a different pulse regime from the platforms on this page, reports 720 mJ at 532 nm from 900 mJ at 1064 nm in a single KTP crystal, an energy conversion efficiency of 80 per cent, using an injection-seeded Q-switched Nd:YAG source at 10 Hz (A. J. W. Brown, M. S. Bowers, K. W. Kangas and C. H. Fisher, Optics Letters 17, 109, 1992). It is cited to show that a high conversion figure is physically ordinary, not as a performance figure for any system we service. What a given stage achieves depends on its own design and operating conditions.
On this platform the evaluation covers the actual configuration as labelled rather than as recorded, the validity of the measurement arrangement itself, and the fundamental power reaching the conversion stage. That last figure is what separates a conversion-stage question from everything upstream of it, and it is why a case can resolve differently from the way it was first described.
Coverage also includes the command path alongside the drive current actually present at the hardware, the optical pulse train independently of the timing electronics, the seed, pump, amplifier and fiber path as separable subsystems, and the feedback path in both directions. That last item is in scope because on this generation of controller a healthy laser reporting a false low value and a degraded laser reporting a healthy one are both seen. The findings name which subsystem the fault sits in.
You receive written findings before any repair is quoted, and no repair, substitution or modification happens without your written approval of the scope and the price.
A KATANA system that cannot be brought to its normal operating state on the bench cannot be diagnosed. Send:
On a discontinued platform, the customer's own paperwork is frequently the only surviving record of the configuration. Send it even if it looks irrelevant.
We receive systems from outside the United States, including from Canadian universities and research institutes. We will provide the commercial documentation a repair shipment normally requires and coordinate with your shipping office. Customs classification, duties and clearance timing remain the sender's responsibility, and we do not give customs guarantees.
What we offer on this model is a defined diagnostic evaluation with written findings, followed by repair engineering within a scope you approve. Stated plainly:
The quantities that decide this case, and which the evaluation therefore covers, are the visible and the infrared components as separate values rather than one combined reading, the real optical pulse train independently of the timing electronics, the commanded seed and pump current alongside the current actually present at the hardware, the spectral condition of whatever light is present, and the fundamental power arriving at the conversion stage. PhaseX defines and provides that measurement capability for the project, drawing on owned, rented or qualified third-party measurement resources arranged as required, and the proposal states where each measurement comes from before anything ships.
Pulse-duration and beam-quality measurement, where this platform requires it, is performed with the measurement resource named in the proposal. We do not offer manufacturer-equivalent calibration, and we do not certify to original published specifications where the original acceptance data is unavailable.
Class 4 work is planned and executed under a project-specific laser safety plan. The required engineering controls, personal protective equipment, beam management and facility conditions are defined in writing before any energized optical work begins, and the infrastructure that plan calls for is provided within the project scope. Where a laboratory's own controls are involved, final hazard analysis and approval stay with the institution's LSO or EHS function.
The KATANA platform originated with Onefive in Switzerland, moved to NKT Photonics, and the associated product line now sits within Hamamatsu Photonics. Hamamatsu's published application material identifies KATANA HP as obsolete.
For a laboratory, that means the ordinary route has closed: no current service contract, no factory module exchange, and in many cases no surviving contact who knows the configuration. It does not mean the instrument is finished. Faults in these systems concentrate in areas that respond to component-level engineering: drivers, supplies, thermal control, feedback paths, fiber interfaces and connectors, and control electronics. Those are the areas we work in.
Where an original part no longer exists, the options are substitution with a functionally equivalent component, a redesigned driver or interface, or a documented finding that the system is not economically repairable. All three are legitimate results, and all three are delivered in writing.
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.
In the published Onefive KATANA HP family the model number identifies the wavelength band, not the output power. The 10 HP designation belongs to the infrared family around 1030 to 1064 nm, while the high-power visible family is designated 05 HP. A unit labelled 10 HP that produces green output is normally either a custom or OEM configuration with an associated second-harmonic stage, a paired system where the labels belong to different modules, or a model designation that was recorded incorrectly. The physical labels on the head, the controller and any conversion module have to be read before the configuration can be treated as known.
It indicates that the command reaches the display layer. It does not indicate that the command reaches the current driver, because a displayed value may be an echo of the commanded setpoint rather than a measurement, and a controller holding a limited or protection state will read exactly as commanded while nothing changes physically. A displayed value is therefore not evidence on its own. Whether the readback path is a real measurement or an echo, and whether a protection state is being held, are among the things the evaluation establishes, and both are stated in the written findings.
Not necessarily. A temperature-stabilized crystal oven is designed to hold its setpoint. If little or no fundamental power is reaching the conversion stage there is almost no optical heat load to disturb it, so a flat temperature is consistent with an absent fundamental as well as with a failed conversion stage. The conversion stage and the chain feeding it are separate parts of the installation and both are inside the service scope; the findings state which one the fault sits in.
The KATANA HP platform originated with Onefive, later moved to NKT Photonics, and the associated product line now sits within Hamamatsu Photonics. Hamamatsu's published application material identifies KATANA HP as obsolete. That is the reason independent evaluation and repair engineering is relevant for these systems.
Manufacturer and distributor documentation used for the family and platform descriptions on this page. Where our reading of a document differs from the configuration in front of us, the physical equipment governs.
The full KATANA and Origami family, service scope and what we ask for at intake.
Read the pageHow a conversion stage is actually tested, and why it is so often blamed for an upstream fault.
Read the pageSeed, amplifier chain and pulse-train diagnostics across picosecond platforms.
Read the pageWhat remains possible after end-of-support, and where the real limits are.
Read the pageOn this platform the first useful answer comes from the labels, not from the symptom. Send photographs of every module label with the complete model and serial number, the operating parameters you expect, and what you actually measured. We will tell you whether the configuration is one we can evaluate and what the evaluation would involve.
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