Abstract

Rapid progress in the development of high power diode lasers and diode laser arrays has led to renewed interest in diode laser pumping of solid state lasers for remote sensing applications[1]. Recent work has shown that diode lasers offer many advantages in the pumping of neodymium doped crystals[2], Nd:Glass[3] and other ions in crystalline hosts[4,5]. Most of the early research has concentrated on end-pumped devices which take advantage of the high brightness of the diode laser to achieve low thresholds and high slope efficiencies. Although these devices are compact and effcient, they do not scale well to larger sizes and higher pump power levels provided by diode laser arrays. To investigate the performance and the potential scaling to higher peak and average powers, we have used a two dimensional array developed by Spectra Diode Labs to pump miniature slabs of Nd:YAG and Nd:Glass. Peak and average power levels of 70kW and 0.59W have been achieved.

© 1987 Optical Society of America