Brightlock® Pump Diodes Take The Heat Out Of High Power Lasers

By Laurent Vaissie, Ph.D., Laser Operations LLC - QPC Lasers

Introduction

Power scaling of diode pumped lasers has accelerated dramatically over the past ten years, breaking through the 100 kW barrier for the first time in 2010 [1] and 10kW from a single mode fiber a few months earlier [2]. Looking forward, in addition to keeping the power scaling curve on the upswing, system designers are now faced with the incredible challenges of minimizing:

• Heat dissipation
• Power consumption
• Cost of ownership

1. Resonant pumping of high power lasers

In order to address these challenges, high power laser groups have recently turned increasingly to resonant pumping. The concept is based on the basic observation that pumping an active material close to its emission wavelength reduces the quantum defect of the transition of a laser system, therefore improving its conversion efficiency.