A high power high frequency laser diodes driver

Abstract

Summary form only given. A new high power laser diode driver has been developed and tested. The possibilities for driving high power laser diode bars and stacks at high frequencies has been shown. The driver is with 0.5% noise and ripple at DC, and can be modulated with 15 ns rise/fall times at 100 A, with maximum frequency for square wave modulation up to 5 MHz. The spikes for the optical output at switching on/off do not exceed 5%. The limitation of the used scheme allows frequencies up to 30 MHz and currents to 400 A to be reached. The driver opens new applications with laser diodes with more than 100 W CW output power. This output power means free space communication at 20 Mbit/s over hundreds of kilometres, the possibility for a 3D range finder with 15 km distance (without a retro prism) and 1 cm distance accuracy, new possibilities for micro machining, synchro pumping solid state lasers or other semiconductor lasers, etc.