Advances in DFB laser diodes improve high power fiber lasers and make them more versatile

In recent years, high power lasers have become a matter of course. A superior laser source can be described by its brilliance, a combination of beam quality and output power, its versatility in terms of pulse generation, its size and weight, its stability as well as reliability and by its total cost of ownership. Traditional high power lasers use gaseous gain media like carbon dioxide or crystals like yttrium aluminum garnet doped with rare earth elements. During the last ten years, fiber lasers have become widely used. These lasers have doped glass cores that act as gain media.