Applications of High Power Semiconductor Lasers

Abstract

At early stage, high power semiconductor lasers have been mainly applied in pumping of solid-state lasers and fiber lasers. However, with the development of chip/bar technology and packaging technology in recent years, semiconductor lasers as light sources have been directly used in many new fields, such as medical and cosmetic, IR illumination, and material surface processing which includes cladding, hardening, and annealing [1–3]. The main applications of semiconductor lasers are shown in Fig. 10.1 [4]. In this chapter, we discuss the applications of high power semiconductor lasers in pumping of solid-state and fiber lasers, in material surface processing as well as medical and cosmetic fields. For pumping application, we mainly discuss the advanced pumping structure and the requirement on semiconductor laser pumping source. For material surface processing application, we introduce a high power semiconductor laser head and discuss its key technologies and applications. For medical and cosmetic, we mainly use laser hair removal as an example to discuss the direct semiconductor laser application in this field.