Most Powerful Continuous Laser

[natski]

Hi all,

I am trying to find out what is the world's most powerful continuous laser? I would also like to know:

- what wavelength range does it operate at and is there a trade-off between bandwidth and max power?

- is there a graph anywhere showing laser power as a function of date, i.e. power from 1950 to 2000...

Cheers,

Natski

 

[Andy Resnick]

According to wikipedia (buyer beware..) the maximum continuous laser power is around 1-2 kW:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser

These are CO2 or diode-pumped solid state lasers.