Optoelectronics

Photocoupler Technology

Photocouplers have wide use in many different markets because they provide a reliable means of protection from high voltages as well as data transmission. They can be found in consumer appliances, industrial control equipment, EV charging stations, and even some of your handheld electronic devices! With the diversity of market segments, American Bright is excited to expand their photocoupler offerings!

Different photosensitive output circuitry allows photocouplers to accomplish a wide variety of tasks, expanding the horizons of applicable technology.

  • They allow signals to be reduced, isolated, as well as amplified.
  • Photo-TRIACS allow for current flow in both directions, which allows for wide usage in AC circuitry applications.
  • Reliable means of interfacing high voltage and low voltage circuits.
  • High speed photocouplers find their use as fast-switching devices in PC communications and data centres.
  • Phototransistors are one of the most common output styles, acting as a switching device. Wide uses in power supplies and microprocessor input/output switching.
  • Isolation APs allow for signal amplification; main uses in sensing, testing, and measuring equipment.

Photocouplers find wide uses in microprocessor input/output switching, PC communications, control of DC and AC power supplies, isolation and amplification of signals, and regulation of power supplies.

Photocouplers consist of an infrared LED (emitting device) and a photosensitive receiving device optically coupled into the same package. What this does is allows electrical signals to be passed from the input to the output circuit; separated by an isolation barrier that is designed to withstand high voltage levels. This finds its way into many applications for safety reasons, as well as to prevent the damaging of expensive or important electrical components.

  • Photocouplers are used in solar power applications to isolate user-accessible circuitry and components from the high-voltage provided to the grid.
  • In charging equipment and devices, photocouplers act as a feedback to ensure that the output circuit never exceeds a preset voltage level.
  • Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) use photocouplers to isolate important low-voltage logic circuitry from high voltage transients and higher voltage circuits.
  • Light dimmers use photocoupler tech to ensure user safety, and also to isolate high and low voltage circuitries in a reliable manner.

If you’d like to know more about how American Bright’s photocouplers can work for you, then please get in touch by calling us on +44 1670361261, or by emailing our sales representative, Jimmy, [email protected].