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21 Jun 2023
Photonics giant says record-breaking output is 30% higher than similar product released earlier this year.
Laser vendor Coherent is set to showcase an industrial pump diode delivering a record-breaking output power of 65 W at next week’s LASER World of Photonics event in Munich.
The large US company, formed by last year’s merger of II-VI and the original Coherent, says that the latest iterations of its 915 nm and 975 nm emitters are 30 per cent more powerful than the previous versions - which were introduced as recently as January, at SPIE’s Photonics West exhibition.
Available either mounted or as bare die from fall 2023 onwards, the devices are being aimed at high-power fiber laser applications - for example hand-held fiber laser welding equipment, which Coherent says is increasingly replacing traditional arc welding.
Also said to operate at a lower current than Coherent’s previous version, the diode’s compatibility with existing sub-mounts is expected to enable a wide range of extremely low-cost fiber laser design architectures.
E2 passivation
Karlheinz Gulden, senior VP in the firm’s “laser components and subsystems” business unit, said in a release ahead of the Munich event: “We believe that this is the first commercially available pump laser diode in the industry to achieve 65 W of output power.
“While the conventional wisdom is that at these power levels more expensive ceramic submounts are required, this is not the case with our laser design because we were able to lower the operating current even as we increased the output power.
“This, in addition to the record-breaking output power, is what makes it such a unique and compelling product.”
Fabricated at Coherent’s six-inch wafer diameter gallium arsenide fabrication facility, the emitter chips feature the firm’s proprietary “E2” front mirror passivation to prevent catastrophic damage to the laser at such high output powers.
Developed more than 20 years ago - at the high-power diode facility in Zurich, Switzerland that was originally owned by IBM - the E2 process was initially used in 980 nm pump lasers for boosting signals in long-haul optical networks.
Munich showcase
The latest high-power diodes will feature among a slew of new industrial laser products from Coherent at the LASER show in Munich. They include:
• a new 50 W version of the firm's ultrafast ultraviolet “Monaco” laser, which is being aimed at high-speed, high-volume cutting of wafers and stacked OLED displays;
• its latest “HighLight” adjustable ring mode (ARM) fiber lasers, featuring a smaller beam spot for improved deep welding of electric vehicle batteries; and
• the new “PowerLine FL” series of fiber laser subsystems, for both cutting and welding applications.
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