Pulsed laser diodes are designed to be driven with high-current pulses, producing short, high-power optical pulses. To achieve the very high peak optical powers demanded by most applications, the duty cycle is gen-erally kept below 0. Improvements in technology and cost-efficiency have opened up new areas of application in automotive, industrial safety scanner. This article provides a comprehensive overview of pulsed lasers, which emit light in the form of optical pulses rather than as a continuous wave. It covers the main types of pulsed lasers, including Q-switched, mode-locked, gain-switched, and excimer lasers, detailing their typical pulse durations. The laser diode chip is the small black chip at the front; a photodiode at the back is used to control output power. SEM (scanning electron microscope) image of a commercial laser diode with its case and window cut away. This encompasses a wide range of technologies addressing a number of different motivations. In a conventional (incoherent).
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