Diode Pumped Solid State Lasers (DPSSL) are gaining increasing interest for high power industrial application, given the continuous improvement in high power diode laser technology reliability and affordability. These sources open new windows in the parameter space for traditional applications such as cutting , welding, marking and engraving for high reflectance metallic materials. Other interesting applications for this kind of sources include high speed thermal printing, precision drilling, selective soldering and thin film etching. In this paper we examine the most important DPSS laser source types for industrial applications and we describe in details the performances of some slab laser configurations investigated at our facilities. The different architectures' advantages and draw-backs are briefly compared in terms of performances, system complexity and ease of scalability to the multi-kW level.

Date Published: 11 October 2005
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 5958, Lasers and Applications, 595802 (11 October 2005); doi: 10.1117/12.619435

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5958:
Lasers and Applications
Krzysztof M. Abramski; Antonio Lapucci; Edward F. Plinski, Editor(s)