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All-solid-state Lasers

Author: the photonics expert Dr. Rüdiger Paschotta (RP)

Definition: laser systems containing solid-state devices only, in particular no discharge lamps or gas or dye lasers

Category: article belongs to category laser devices and laser physics laser devices and laser physics

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DOI: 10.61835/ji7 Cite the article: BibTex plain text HTML Link to this page! LinkedIn

All-solid-state lasers are lasers which rely on solid-state components not only concerning the gain medium, but also the pump source. Such lasers are solid-state lasers (bulk or fiber lasers) pumped with laser diodes (→ diode-pumped lasers), or pure semiconductor lasers. Excluded are e.g. lamp-pumped lasers, dye lasers, and gas lasers.

end-pumped laser — Figure 1: Setup of a typical end-pumped solid-state laser.

For many practical laser applications, it is desirable to work with all-solid-state lasers because they can have a robust and compact setup, a relatively high wall-plug efficiency and correspondingly low cooling requirements, and a long lifetime. They also often exhibit lower laser noise than lamp-pumped lasers, for example.

More to Learn

Suppliers

The RP Photonics Buyer's Guide contains 127 suppliers for diode-pumped lasers. Among them:

RPMC Lasers

Serving North America, RPMC Lasers offers diode-pumped lasers in pulsed and CW configs, customizable, compact, rugged, with varied power for diverse uses.

Our Pulsed DPSS lasers feature UV, visible, IR wavelengths to 5^th harmonic, active/passive Q-switching for ns, ps & fs pulses, pulse energies from nJ to 100s of mJ, from single pulse to 80 MHz repetition rate, high brightness, and efficient absorption.

Our CW DPSS lasers provide UV to NIR options, single/multimode, narrow linewidth, stabilized outputs, integrated thermal/electrical modules, OEM or plug-and-play setups with free-space/fiber output from mW to watts.

Let RPMC help you find the right laser today!

Bright Solutions

Bright Solutions offers a range of diode-pumped solid-state lasers, including

Wedge – nanosecond Q-switched lasers for 266, 355, 532, 1064, 1570, 3100 nm (also multi-wavelength configurations), used e.g. for atmospheric LIDAR, monitoring, glass machining or lithography
Onda – compact monolithic nanosecond Q-switched lasers for 266, 355, 532 or 1064 nm, used e.g. for lens marking, plastic marking or intravolume glass marking
Sol – compact Q-switched lasers for 355, 532 or 1064 nm, up to 200 kHz, used e.g. for automotive fabrication, electronic machining, ID card writing and other industrial applications
Vento – sub-nanosecond MOPA lasers with pulse durations down to 500 ps, up to 200 kHz, up to 100 W average power at 1064 nm or 50 W at 532 nm, e.g. for LIDAR or PCB microprocessing
[Aero – high energy lasers ](aero-high-energy-dpss-lasers/) with up to 200 mJ at 1064 nm, 100 mJ at 532 nm, multi-wavelength configurations, custom beam shaping, application e.g. in atmospheric LIDAR, LIBS or nonlinear spectroscopy
BDL and BFD – fiber-coupled diode laser modules with up to 200 W cw (or 400 W quasi-cw) in a 200-μm core fiber, e.g. for pumping of solid-state and fiber lasers, material processing or illumination; pulsed models are available
NPS – narrowband picosecond lasers for applications like OPO pumping, Raman or fluorescence spectroscopy and multimodal imaging
ONE DPSS – miniaturized Q-switched lasers with up to 200 μJ and down to 3 ns, e.g. for atmospheric LIDAR and laser marking on plastics

GWU-Lasertechnik

GWU-Lasertechnik provides diode-pumped solid-state laser solutions with wavelength conversion. The sophisticated optical and mechanical design and the soft pumping scheme ensure excellent performance, highest reliability and longest lifetime. Continuous, gap-free tunability from the deep-UV at <190 nm to the infrared spectral range at >2700 nm is offered for best usability.

HÜBNER Photonics

HÜBNER Photonics offer continuous-wave diode-pumped lasers (DPLs) with wavelengths between 355 nm and 1064 nm. Most of them feature single-longitudinal mode operation with excellent noise and power stability.

Sheaumann Laser

As a breakthrough in DPSS laser technology, the MirPac is a 2.94-μm Er:YAG laser with TEM₀₀ output beam in a hermetically sealed windowed package that was the first of its kind. Operating at 2940 nm, the wavelength with strongest absorption in water, the MirPac is ideal for use in tandem with water or with materials that contain some amount of water.

Teem Photonics

Teem Photonics offers air-cooled diode-pumped passively Q-switched lasers – the Microchip laser series and the more powerful Powerchip laser series. Higher average power versions are based on a MOFA architecture, i.e., using a fiber amplifier. All can generate intense sub-nanosecond pulses. Available emission wavelengths are 1064 nm, 532 nm, 355 nm, 266 nm and 213 nm.

Monocrom

Monocrom offers diode-pumped solid state lasers for medical, material processing, LiDAR and spectroscopy applications as well as for laser pumping:

LQ-527-12: a frequency-doubled Nd:YLF laser emitting up to 1 mJ at 527 nm
Multi-Path 532: a photocoagulation laser emitting up to 8 W cw or 15 W qcw at 532 nm
CiOM lasers emitting nanosecond pulses at 526.5 nm

Lumibird

The large range of Lumibird pulsed nanosecond solid-state lasers includes diode-pumped models, from 5 mJ to 1.5 J at 1064 nm, from single pulse to 400 Hz. These lasers can be integrated into a system thanks to their compactness and robustness, or used as stand-alone devices. Several wavelengths are available, including 1.57 µm.

ALPHALAS

ALPHALAS offers advanced diode-pumped solid-state lasers with pulse durations in the nanosecond or picosecond region, as well as CW lasers. Different types of pulsed diode-pumped lasers include:

actively or passively mode-locked picosecond lasers,
regeneratively amplified lasers,
actively and passively Q-switched lasers, and
mode-locked and cavity-dumped lasers.

Customer-specific repetition rates and pulse energies are available on request. Some models can operate at single longitudinal mode in CW or pulsed mode. Optionally available are also second, third or fourth harmonics for most of the above lasers.

CNI Laser

CNI offers the widest range of diode-pumped lasers not only in terms of wavelength, but also concerning various features: we have single-frequency lasers, narrow linewidth lasers, low noise lasers, high power and energy lasers, mode-locked and picosecond lasers and Q-switched lasers.

CSRayzer Optical Technology

CSRayzer's high quality pump laser diodes with butterfly package can provide high output powers for fiber amplifiers. The built-in thermo-electric cooler (TEC) can make the laser diode work properly in various environments.

EKSPLA

EKSPLA offers a wide range of femtosecond, picosecond and nanosecond lasers for research and industrial applications.

high-E Photonics

high-E Photonics provides highly efficient diode-pumped laser systems in the mJ and joule range. Please reach out to us for a customized quotation.

Vexlum

Vertical-External-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VECSELs), also known as semiconductor disk lasers or optically pumped semiconductor lasers, provide a versatile platform with features beneficial for applications requiring broad wavelength coverage and high output power. Key features include:

Broad wavelength coverage
Multi-watt power output
Low noise
Excellent spatial quality
Tunable narrow-linewidth operation

VECSELs are suitable for applications that demand exotic wavelengths and high power with narrow spectral linewidths.

Bibliography

[1]	R. L. Byer, “Diode laser-pumped solid-state lasers”, Science 239, 742 (1988)
[2]	D. W. Hughes and J. R. M. Barr, “Laser diode pumped solid state lasers”, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 25 (4), 563 (1992)
[3]	D. C. Hanna and W. A. Clarkson, “A review of diode-pumped lasers”, in Advances in Lasers and Applications (eds. D. M. Finlayson and B. Sinclair), Taylor & Francis, London (1999)
[4]	A. Sennaroglu (ed.), Solid-State Lasers and Applications, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL (2007)

(Suggest additional literature!)

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