Articles
RSSPulsed Laser Diodes For Industrial Applications
February 5, 2010
•Application Note: Pulsed Laser Diodes For Industrial Applications
By LASER COMPONENTS
Pulsed laser diodes have their roots in military applications. They are ideally suited to rangefinding thanks to their short pulse widths and high output powers. Improvements in technology and cost-efficiency have opened up new areas of application in metrology and medicine. A handful of manufacturers offer inexpensive laser diodes, which generate short but intense light pulses of up to 220 W.
Most laser diodes are designed to emit in continuous wave (cw) mode with powers from a few milliwatts to a few watts. Such diodes are not designed to be overdriven; if the specified maximum power is exceeded, even for a short time, the laser resonator may be damaged, after which laser output will cease.
Pulsed laser diodes, however, are designed to be overdriven for short periods. To achieve the high peak powers demanded by the application, the duty cycle must be kept very low, typically 0.1%. For example, a 100 ns pulse is followed by a pause of 100 µs, which means that very short pulses can be used with repetition rates in the kHz range. The maximum pulse lengths that can be achieved are therefore typically in the 200 ns range. Laser currents on the order of several tens of amperes are used to create these light pulses, which require fast switching transistors and appropriate circuit with all electrical connections as short as possible to diminish inductive losses.
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