My less than satisfying learning journey with diode lasers did not deliver the promised performance I had anticipated. However, poor and inconsistent perfomance of some of the equipment forced me to investigate the optical design characterisics of how multiple small 5 watt laser sources were supposedly being combined to make a single powerful focal point. In reality this was an illusion, but understanding how the the optical tricks being employed would never work with mutiple laser beams led me to imagine that those same tricks WOULD work with a single small diameter laser beam.
The lightbulb moment happened when I recalled my disappointing failure to tame the 2mm diameter CO2 RF beam. Hmm....perhaps there was a major lesson to be learnt from diode technology after all!!!
