Inside the 1535 nm Pulsed Source: What Changes from 10 µJ to 10 mJ
Same gain medium, same wavelength, same TEM00 output — and a factor of a thousand in pulse energy. What changes between the smallest and the largest model is gain volume, drive current and heat, not the physics.
What stays the same
Er:Yb phosphate glass, diode-pumped, Q-switched, 1535 nm, nanosecond pulses. That is why a design can move between power classes without rebuilding the optics.
Three tiers, not a smooth line
The microchip tier (10–100 µJ) is about size: the MINI-100 is 100 µJ in 2.5 g. The compact tier (100–900 µJ) covers ER100 to ER900, from 7 g to 18 g. The millijoule tier (ER2000 and up) is 105–220 g of machined block. Each tier solves a different problem.
The drive climbs faster than the energy
2 V and 8 A on an ER100. 2 V and 30 A on an ER800. Up to 5 V and 100 A on the millijoule blocks, and 14 V on the ER8000 and ER10000. The permitted drive pulse grows too: 2.4 ms, then 3 ms, then 4 ms. A rail that looks adequate on paper rarely is.
Heat sets the repetition rate
Average power is energy times rate, and the heat behind it is larger. That is why the millijoule models stop at 1–5 Hz while the high-repetition family reaches 5 kHz at tens of microjoules. Neither figure is arbitrary; both follow from how fast the glass can recover.
Mass follows energy
| Model | Energy | Rate | Mass |
|---|---|---|---|
| MINI-100 | 100 µJ | 1–10 Hz | 2.5 g |
| ER300 | 300 µJ | 1–10 Hz | 8.5 g |
| ER800 | 800 µJ | 1–10 Hz | 18 g |
| ER2000 | 2 mJ | 1–5 Hz | 105 g |
| ER8000 | 8 mJ | 1–5 Hz | 220 g |
Between the microchip and the 8 mJ unit, energy rises eighty times and mass eighty-eight times. There is no trick that avoids this.
Choosing
Work out the energy you need on target, then the rate, then the aperture the payload can carry. If two models fit, take the smaller one: less mass, less current, longer life. The big transmitters are for cases where the link budget genuinely needs them.
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