Compact stacking of diode lasers for pulsed light sources of high brightness

A compact stacking architecture for high-power diode-laser arrays is proposed and compared with traditional stacks. The objective of compact stacking is to achieve high brightness values without the use of microlenses. The calculated brightness for a compact stack is over 300 W mm(-2) sr(-1), which is approximately 40 times higher than that of a traditional stack made of similar laser emitters. Even higher brightness values of over 600 W mm(-2) sr(-1) were reached in practice. A laser head was manufactured in which the light from several compact laser stacks could be fiber coupled or the light could be transformed to a highly uniform beam.