Abstract

Many power conditioning aspects not considered or ignored in low average power pulsed lasers can complicate and degrade performance and operation in higher power systems. With electrical to optical conversion efficiencies of the order of a few percent, to achieve an output of several hundred watts requires many tens of kilowatts input power. In the case of high repetition rate machines, the associated high rms currents accentuate the effect of component equivalent series resistance (I²R) and design of interconnecting conductors. If high average power is achieved by increasing the peak pulse power, mechanical stress, component mounting, and layout become critical design issues. These effects greatly impact the cost, longevity, reliability, availability, and maintainability of the laser system.

© 1989 Optical Society of America