High duty cycle, highly efficient fiber coupled 940-nm pump module for high-energy solid-state lasers. (18th February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Platz, René; Eppich, Bernd; Rieprich, Juliane; Pittroff, Wolfgang; Erbert, Götz; Crump, Paul
• Is Part Of: High power laser science and engineering. Volume 4(2016)
• Publication Date: 2016-02-18
• Subjects: diode laser, -- diode pumped solid-state laser, -- fiber coupling, -- high-power, -- QCW diode laser stack; High power lasers -- Periodicals; 621.366
• DOI: 10.1017/hpl.2016.5
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2095-4719

Abstract

Abstract : Tailored diode laser single emitters with long (6 mm) resonators and wide (1.2 mm) emission apertures that operate with 940 nm emission wavelength were assembled in novel edge-cooled vertically stacked arrays, and used to construct a compact and highly efficient fiber coupled pump source for Yb:YAG pulsed high-energy class solid-state lasers. The novel configuration is shown to allow repetition rates of 200 Hz at 1 ms pulse duration, at an output power of 130 W per single emitter. The emission of two stacked arrays was then optically combined to realize pump modules that deliver 6 kW peak power (pulse energy 6 J) from a 1.9 mm core diameter fiber, with wall plug efficiency of 50%. This represents a significant improvement in terms of duty cycle and electro-optical efficiency over conventional sources. The pump module has been successfully tested at the Max Born Institute, Berlin during trials for pumping of disk lasers.