High-power disk and fiber lasers: a performance comparison

Abstract

The Performance of High Power Disk Lasers and Fiber Lasers along with their rapid development to the high power cw regime have been of great interest throughout the last decade. Both technologies are still in the focus of several conferences, workshops, and papers and represent the "state-of-the-art" of industrial high power solid state lasers for material processing. As both laser concepts are considered to be the leading 1 μm light-source, this presentation presents an objective and fair comparison of the two different technologies from a manufacturer who pursued both. From the geometry of the active material, through the resonator design, cooling regime, and pumping method to the point of beam quality and power scaling, the different approaches associated with the advantages, challenge and limits of each technology will be discussed. Based on ROFIN's substantial industrial experience with both laser concepts, an outlook into future trends and chances, especially linked to fiber laser, will be given.