Abstract

Solid-state lasers operating at high continuous wave output power are attractive sources for various applications in materials processing and nonlinear frequency conversion. Since the development of reliable high power diode arrays, numerous publications have reported on the superiority of these pump sources compared to the conventional excitation with flash lamps [1-5]. While first generations of solid-state lasers were directly pumped with diode lasers, the application of fiber-coupled diodes has been prooven to result in significant improvements of system parameters, such as reliability and stability [2, 5].

© 1996 IEEE