Temple 8 Research
AI Buildout, Macro & Energy Infrastructure Research
nLIGHT is cheap and well placed to re-rate after being crushed post-earnings, and it is the far better long-term name. Its laser is the US military's favorite against drone swarms, being the cheapest to use and reportedly able to run 12 hours without a generator. It is not a particularly high-quality name. x.comÂ
Electro Optic Systems benefits from being free of ITAR export controls, while those controls are hurting nLIGHT. nLIGHT could be doing a lot better. x.comÂ
Laser defense is arriving as regulators approve it, and nLIGHT is the US pure play on that shift. The FAA has greenlit laser sentry guns against attack drones in US airspace, per @zerohedge. nLIGHT is developing lasers up to 1MW, the strongest in development, at only about a $3.5B market cap, while AeroVironment, despite its Locust system, is too diversified for laser exposure. x.comÂ
LightPath's counter-drone deliveries could significantly lift revenue in the upcoming report if their monthly cadence began mid-last quarter. Sam Rubin said two systems are moving toward tens of deliveries monthly; Trust Automation is almost definitely one, but the ramp is unknown. Exclusively licensed, DoD-qualified BDNL materials and IR redesign expertise give LightPath a strong moat over generic-material rivals; integrators often lack optics teams, though other materials have uses. x.com … Show more
nLight is the differentiated, vertically integrated player, while AeroVironment operates in the commoditized 20-30 kW range. nLight has just launched a scalable platform spanning 70 kW to 1 MW whose power levels share many components and subsystems, creating manufacturing, procurement and engineering efficiencies that should be fantastic for gross margins. nLight even supplies components to AeroVironment, whose incremental economics look doubtful, as its last quarterly report clearly showed. … Show more
nLight has pivoted from industrial lasers to a lean, high-margin defense play, with high risk and high reward. It is a core winner in high-energy laser defense, where its HELSI-2 prototype-to-production work drove record FY2025 revenue of $261 million, up 31%. It raised about $200 million in February 2026 to expand aerospace and defense capacity, cutting reliance on the cyclical industrial market. x.comÂ
LightPath Technologies trades at 6.3x FY2027 analyst revenue, half nLIGHT's 13x on essentially the same small-cap defense photonics setup. NDAA Section 834 requires the Pentagon to drop optical glass from China, Russia and others by 2030, and LightPath holds the only US chalcogenide glass licensed from the Naval Research Laboratory. After Q3 revenue rose 109%, analysts lifted FY2027 revenue 27% to $106M. Risks include G5 earnout charges, a $200M shelf and a plant in China. x.com x.comÂ
nLIGHT sits in the hot fiber-optics space, is nearly profitable and posted triple-digit EPS growth last year. All analysts rate it a strong buy, with an $88 target. x.comÂ
IPG Photonics is a trade at best, not an investment, while Lincoln Electric is the preferred investment for cutting and welding. A 23% earnings drop would normally attract interest, but IPG is a retail photonics hype name whose stock is where it was 10 years ago, and the telecom division it sold to Lumentum years ago was small. Buying it would take hard facts of a proven business pivot, like Rambus's, showing the next 10 years won't look like the last 10. x.com x.com x.comÂ
When wars drag on, the sensors and components inside weapons platforms make the money, which favors nLIGHT, LightPath and RFHIC. On March 3, after US and Israeli strikes on Iran, KOSPI crashed 7.24% while sensor makers such as RFHIC rallied alongside platform names. RF power amplifiers inside radars such as Cheongung-II's are the bottleneck, and RFHIC signed a KRW 50.6 billion amplifier contract with Raytheon Canada. The same InP, GaAs and GaN wafers go into lasers, radars and IR sensors. x.com … Show more
nLIGHT's opportunities are huge, but supply-chain problems could last longer than the market prices in, so it is only worth adding on a significant drop. Weapons restocking should help its laser sensing business, and a new JLWS award brings $44M in 2026 with a $627M ceiling. But Q3 guidance is much weaker because China is holding optical components in customs, which the CEO called political football. At a rich multiple, it could languish in the $40s until the next big win. x.com x.com x.com … Show more
