Overdrive Short Pulse High Peak Power Diode Lasers without Catastrophic Optical Damage

Abstract

Light Imaging Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) and Optoacoustic biomedical imaging techniques are applications that have a specific laser source requirements: short pulses, high peak power per pulse and high repetition rates. A custom current driver has been designed to fulfill these requirements and characterized in order to generate high current short pulses to drive High Power Diode Lasers (HPDL) beyond their maximum rating value, with a maximum current capacity of 120 A in a range of less than 10 nanoseconds pulse width, rise times up to 2 ns and a repetition rate of 1 kHz. Four commercial HPDLs have been driven generating optical pulses of less than 10 ns and more than four times the maximum rated optical peak power. A single laser device reached a maximum peak power of 880.6 W at 6 ns pulse width, demonstrating stable operation without catastrophic optical damage and improving the typical operation characteristics of the HPDLs for high speed short pulse applications.