Output Power and Reliability of High Power Diode Lasers

Recent advances in efficiency and mounting technology have lead to new sets of parameters for commercially available high power diode lasers (HDL). Still, these advances have to be proven by extensive long-term aging tests (LAT). The results of these give both the safety margin for operating todays HDL as well as hints towards further improvement. By statistical means clear information on reliability can be derived from these LATs. The reliability required by industrial applications of HDLs lead to a focus on quality at JENOPTIK Laserdiode over the last seven years. Today - after delivering tens of thousands of diode lasers, thousands of stacks, and thousands of fiber-coupled units into several applications - clear operation conditions can be formulated. On this experience diode lasers have been developed to ease the still strict operation conditions, especially to make the cooling easier. An overview is given on the results of the reliability improvements. The new bar properties are made usable by improved mounting procedures. Especially for passive cooling new ranges of output power are accessible. This improves both cost structure and the ease of use. Based on the knowledge gained from the improvement of the cw diode lasers new opportunities for qcw products arise. These new opportunities are discussed.