A brief history of high-power semiconductor lasers

The following is a historical perspective of the significant technological demonstrations that shaped the history of high power semiconductor lasers. The article is not meant to be a review article, as there are much better review articles and reviewers available, nor would the article try to cover all of the contributions to such a rich technology. Nonetheless, the article, anecdotally, presents a perspective on the technological advances that resulted in the enabling technology of high power semiconductor lasers for applications such as fiber optic communications, data storage, and material processing.