Leonardo DRS Awarded for Two Leading Quantum Cascade Laser Technologies

November 8, 2021

ARLINGTON, VA, NOVEMBER 8, 2021  – Leonardo DRS, Inc. announced today that its Daylight Solutions business was recognized with two awards for advanced laser technologies by Endeavor Business Media’s Laser Focus World, a leading photonics industry publication.  The annual awards highlight advancements and innovations in the photonics arena.

The Daylight Solutions business was recognized by the annual Laser Focus World “Innovator Awards” for its Culpeo® Quantum Cascade Laser-Infrared (QCL-IR) Liquid Analyzer and its MIRcat-QT Rapid-Scan, Ultra-Broadly Tunable Mid-IR Laser.  The business was given Gold and Silver-level awards for, “excellence in a product or technology, an application, or in research and development,” for the products, respectively.

Receiving a Gold-level award for the 2021 Innovators Awards in the category of Spectroscopy, was the Daylight Solutions Culpeo® QCL-IR Liquid Analyzer.

The technology is a compact, intelligent spectrometer that uses the power of QCLs to analyze and identify chemicals. It combines the latest high-speed, broadly tunable QCL technology with advanced, uncooled detection capability. An embedded computer is programmed with molecular identification algorithms for unmatched specificity and speed.

“Until now, chemical identification of proteins and protein conjugates in aqueous environments has been an extreme challenge in the fingerprint region of the infrared spectrum,” said Jeremy Rowlette, Senior Director, Scientific & Life Sciences Product Lines for Daylight Solutions. “The Culpeo® QCL-IR Analyzer surpasses the limit of detection commonly experienced with Fourier Transform Infrared techniques and provides chemical information that is otherwise unobtainable by UV methods and allows scientists to rapidly and non-destructively obtain both qualitative and quantitative information of analytes in a flow separation.”

Receiving a Silver-level award for the 2021 Innovators Awards in the category of Lasers and Sources, was the MIRcat-QT Rapid-Scan, Ultra-Broadly Tunable Mid-IR Laser.

“Demanding mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectroscopy applications such as nanoscale chemical imaging benefit greatly from rapid, high signal-to-noise ratio data acquisition. Until now, mid-IR laser sources required compromises in beam quality and wavelength fidelity to achieve high scan speeds,” Rowlette said.

“Fast tuning not only offers higher throughput of data, but also enables applications where there is limited time to capture data. Rapid measurements give researchers an advantage in applications from cancer research for fast screening of tissue biomarkers to spectroscopic measurements of hot gases.”

The Laser Focus World awards used an independent panel of judges to review submissions and awarded technologies on originality; innovation; their impact on designers, systems integrators, or users; whether they fulfilled a new market need; leveraged a novel technology and/or increased productivity.

QCL technology is part of the larger Leonardo DRS advanced sensor technology portfolio, which has an extensive installed base across the U.S. military and commercially. Laser technology and electro-optical and infrared sensing is a key strategic focus for Leonardo DRS as the company brings together its world-leading sensing and laser technologies to provide defensive protective systems for the U.S. armed forces as well as a range of research and scientific uses.

To find out more about these technologies, visit the Leonardo DRS Daylight Solutions business at: www.daylightsolutions.com/

About Leonardo DRS

Leonardo DRS is a leading provider of defense products and technologies that are used across land, air, sea, space and cyber domains. Its diverse array of defense systems and solutions is offered to all branches of the U.S. military, major aerospace and defense prime contractors, government intelligence agencies and international military customers for deployment on a wide range of military platforms. Leonardo DRS focuses its capabilities in areas of critical importance to the U.S. military, such as sensing, electronic warfare & cyber, network computing, communications, force protection and electrical power and propulsion. With a portfolio that includes internally developed proprietary intellectual property and products at the component, sub-system and system level, Leonardo DRS serves as either a prime contractor or a sub-contractor. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Leonardo DRS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Leonardo S.p.A. See the full range of capabilities at www.LeonardoDRS.com

For additional information please contact:

Leonardo DRS Investor Relations Contact
Steve Vather
Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Finance

+1 703 409 2906

[email protected]


Leonardo DRS Media Contact
Michael Mount
Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs

+1 571 447 4624

[email protected]