Gooch & Housego buys IntraAction and its Illinois photonics plant

Gooch & Housego has acquired IntraAction, bringing the US company’s Bellwood, Illinois, plant into the UK photonics group. The deal combines IntraAction’s acousto-optic devices and RF drivers with G&H’s crystal growth and optical fabrication operations. G&H expects the site to add manufacturing capacity and is targeting applications that include wafer inspection and advanced packaging. It did not disclose the price or say how much capacity it expects to add. The purchase follows G&H’s acquisition by Arlington Capital Partners in October, which took the group into private ownership. ^[1]

In a beam deflector from IntraAction, the RF driver excites a transducer, which sends an acoustic wave through the crystal. The wave acts as a moving diffraction grating, so tuning the RF frequency steers the diffracted beam. Varying the drive power changes how much light goes into it. The driver’s frequency range and output power therefore sit alongside the optical wavelength and aperture in the device specification. ^[2][3]

IntraAction’s DTD-274HA6 steers a 1,064 nm beam on two axes using tellurium dioxide, with a nominal watt of RF drive per axis around a 27 MHz centre frequency. IntraAction lists a dual frequency source and a matching dual amplifier for the deflector. G&H already makes RF drivers of its own; the acquisition announcement does not set out a joint product range or changes to the existing lines. ^[1][2][3]