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The biggest challenge in pumping these materials efficiently is the need for maintaining the narrow gain media absorption band of approximately 0.01nm while greatly increasing power. Typical high power diode lasers achieve spectral widths around 3nm (FWHM) in the near infrared spectrum, but optical gratings may be used internal or external to the cavity to reduce the spectral width. Recently, experimental results have shown yet narrower line widths ranging from picometers at very low power levels to sub-100 picometers for water cooled stacks around 1kW of output power.
The focus of this work is the development of a fiber-based pump system for potassium DPAL. The individual tasks are the development of high power 766nm chip material, a fiber-coupled module as a building block, and a scalable system design to address power requirements from hundreds of watts to tens of kilowatts. Results for a 3kW system achieving ~30GHz bandwidth at 766nm will be shown. Approaches for power-scaling and size reduction will be discussed.
Three key parameters need to be known in order to design a diode laser module that is suited for high peak powers. First is the damage threshold of the facet. The damage threshold determines the maximum power level at which the laser can be operated safely, considering a proper safety margin dependent on application. The damage threshold is a function of the input pulse width and amplitude. The second parameter which is influenced by the drive current is the slow axis divergence of the diode laser. Knowledge of this parameter is critical when designing the system optics. The third parameter is the effective emitter size which may increase with operating current. An increase in emitter size will lead to larger divergences after collimating optics for a given focal length lens and may result in a larger spot when coupling into an optical fiber. All these parameters have to be considered when designing a new product.
Presented here is a study on these three critical parameters as a function of operating conditions. Results for different diode designs will be presented. The data presented includes damage thresholds, as well as near field and far field data at various operating currents. A design study for fiber coupled modules with high pulse energies based on the test results will be shown for various wavelengths.
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