High power laser activities at Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.

Activities on high power laser at Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. (KHI) are reviewed. We started R and D of high power laser technologies from the development of Chemical Oxygen-Iodine Laser (COIL) for industrial application in 1886. With advent of the 21st century, we shifted the application of our COIL technologies, and successfully received the contract of major high power laser R and D program from the Japan Ministry of Defense (J-MoD) in 2010. The COIL has many attractive features such as high power, good beam quality, etc., but the system is a bit complicated due to the chemical pumping. Currently, we are developing single-mode fiber laser and beam combing technologies for the downsizing of military high power laser.