Microchip lasers and laser arrays

Summary form only given. Microchip lasers are miniature diode pumped solid state lasers which can be manufactured in large volume at low cost. Some of their characteristics include simple single-frequency operation, tunability over the gain bandwidth (up to 100 GHz) without a mode jump, short pulse (sub nanosecond) and high peak power capability and high speed (multi-GHz) frequency modulation capability. One and two-dimensional arrays of microchip lasers offer the possibility to scale the average output power from such devices with constant brightness while maintaining many of the unique characteristics of the individual microchip lasers. The manufacturing cost for these device can be significantly less than for most other lasers and they can be effectively used for high power industrial materials processing, communications, imaging and laser radar as well as medical applications