Big Lasers
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Pulsed Lasers
Continuous Lasers
Alphabetical List of Lasers

High power lasers constructed by university, government or military research laboratories perform a wide variety of functions such as inertial confinement fusion or missile defense. There are two kinds of high power research lasers, pulsed and continuous:

Pulsed Lasers

Pulse lasers operate for very short periods usually for much less than one second. They can produce extremely high peak powers (energy divided by pulse duration) but only for a very short period of time. Many pulsed lasers have very low average powers (total energy produced in one second of operation)

Continuous Lasers (CW)

Continuous lasers operate continuously for periods exceeding one second. The familiar laser pointer is one example. These lasers usually have a relatively high average power and are often classified as military lasers.

 

Efficiencies and power levels of lasers

Type Wavelength
(mm)
Efficiency Power levels available (W)
Pulsed CW
CO2 10.6 0.01 - 0.02
(pulsed)
> 2 ´ 1013 > 105
CO 5 0.4 > 109 > 100
Holmium 2.06 0.03 (lamp)
0.1 (diode)
> 107 30
Iodine 1.315 0.003 > 1012 -
Nd-glass,
YAG
1.06 0.001 - 0.06 (lamp)
> 0.1 (diode)
~ 1014
(10 beams)
1 - 103
* Color center 1 - 4 10-3 > 106 1
* Vibronic
(Ti Sapphire)
0.7 - 0.9 > 0.1 ´ hp 106 1 - 5
Ruby 0.6943 < 10-3 1010 1
He-Ne 0.6328 10-4 - 1 - 50 ´ 10-3
* Argon ion 0.45 - 0.60 10-3 ´ 104 1 - 20
* OPO 0.4 - 9.0 > 0.1 ´ hp 106 1 - 5
N2 0.3371 0.001 - 0.05 105 - 106 -
* Dye 0.3 - 1.1 10-3 > 106 140
Kr - F 0.26 0.08 > 109 500
Xenon 0.175 0.02 > 108 -
* = Tunable sources, hp=pump laser efficiency from page 50 of NRL Plasma Formulary

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