High energy, high peak power diode pumped solid state lasers for materials processing

The emergence of commercially available diode pumped solid state lasers in the 3 - 10 watt power range has created alternative laser sources for many light industrial applications. Laser marking, micro-machining, resistor trimming, disk texturing, and rapid prototyping are some of the applications which can benefit from this technology. In this paper, we describe fiber-coupled diode bar pumped Nd:YAG and Nd:YVO₄ lasers with short pulse (< 10 ns), high energy (~ 2 mJ), and relatively high average power (3 - 10 W) developed for these applications. Our design emphasizes system efficiency and simplicity to minimize the cost of ownership. The excellent beam spatial quality and pulse-to-pulse stability of these devices results in improved process yields for the end user.