Furukawa Electric Review No.52Development of the High-Power Blue Laser Diode Module and its Laser System

Naoki Hayamizu, Hajime Mori

With the goal of applying blue lasers to the metal processing, we have developed a high-power blue diode module in cooperation with Nichia Corporation. Nichia Corporation has made a blue laser diode (blue LD) which outputs the highest optical power in the world enclosed in a small-sized package and Furukawa Electric has modularized it based on the technology acquired in developing an infrared laser diode module (IR LDM) applied to fiber lasers. As a result, we have successfully developed the blue laser diode module (blue LDM) which generates an optical output power of 185 W in average through an optical fiber of approximately 100 μm in core diameter and has a high reliability with no decrease in the optical output power even after a continuous operation of 1,000 hours and exceeding.
We have built a Direct Diode Laser (DDL) by connecting the blue LDM mentioned above with a control circuit and a drive circuit and have successfully developed the Blue-IR Hybrid Laser System “BRACE” by combining it with an IR fiber laser.