Abstract

Tremendous progress has been made over recent years in the development of high power fibre laser systems. Gone are the days when fibre lasers were perceived as an irrelevant curiosity offering interesting performance features but always at a power level that seemed inadequate for all but a few niche applications. Improvements in high-power, high-brightness multi-mode pump lasers, coupled with the development of cladding-pumped laser technology, have changed that view. It is now widely appreciated that the excellent heat dissipation characteristics of fibre along with the high efficiencies (often greater than 80%), actually make fibre lasers a front runner for many high power laser applications and in particular those that require the generation of high average power continuous-wave radiation. Average power levels of 110W have already been reported for a fibre laser and there is significant potential for scaling the power levels still higher.

© 2001 EPS