High power diode pumped alkali vapor lasers

摘要

Diode pumped alkali lasers have developed rapidly since their first demonstration. These lasers offer a path to convert highly efficient, but relatively low brightness, laser diodes into a single high power, high brightness beam. General Atomics has been engaged in the development of DPALs with scalable architectures. We have examined different species and pump characteristics. We show that high absorption can be achieved even when the pump source bandwidth is several times the absorption bandwidth. In addition, we present experimental results for both potassium and rubidium systems pumped with a 0.2 nm bandwidth alexandrite laser. These data show slope efficiencies of 67% and 72% respectively.