New York, January 15, 2026, 19:30 (EST) — After-hours
- Coherent shares rose 6.4% in extended trade after a sharp Thursday run-up
- The photonics maker rolled out a new visible laser platform and new handheld laser meters
- Traders now look to next week’s Photonics West show for demand signals
Coherent Corp shares rose in after-hours trading on Thursday, holding onto a strong session that pushed the stock as high as $210.89 before it eased back. The shares were last up 6.4% at $195.96, with about 7.0 million shares traded.
The move matters because investors have been piling into names tied to data centers, chipmaking and optical links, and Coherent sits in the middle of that supply chain. Fresh product news doesn’t usually move a stock this much, but momentum has been touchy this week.
A broader chip rally also helped. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co on Thursday reported a record fourth-quarter profit and beat expectations, underscoring demand tied to artificial intelligence hardware. 1
Coherent makes lasers, transceivers and other optical and optoelectronic devices used in datacenter and communications gear, as well as industrial systems and materials. It is based in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania. 2
On Thursday, the company announced a new mid-power visible laser platform called Sapphire XT, with 1 watt of output power at multiple wavelengths, built around its optically pumped semiconductor (OPS) technology. OPS is a laser design Coherent uses to deliver stable visible light in a compact package. A senior vice president, Torsten Rauch, called it “a major step forward” for compact visible-spectrum lasers. 3
Coherent also launched FieldMax Touch and FieldMax Touch Pro, a new family of compact laser power and energy meters aimed at production and field service work, the company said. The Pro model adds pulse-by-pulse energy capture at up to 1 kilohertz — measuring as many as 1,000 laser pulses a second — using pyroelectric sensors. Rauch said the device “brings true lab-grade diagnostics” into factory and field settings. 4
The spike leaves a simple question for Friday: is this a one-day reaction to product headlines, or the start of another leg higher in a stock that has already been volatile. If the broader chip bid fades, COHR could give back ground fast.
Investors’ next checkpoint is the SPIE BiOS and SPIE Photonics West gathering in San Francisco, running January 17–22. Coherent’s Chief Marketing Officer Dr. Sanjai Parthasarathi, who will appear on a January 20 panel on co-packaged optics — a push to place optics closer to chips to cut power use and boost speed — called the event the industry’s “foremost” meeting for photonics. 5
