Small CO2 lasers can be air cooled but most are water cooled like the big diode bricks. Efficiency isn't bad for CO2 lasers, they're some of the most efficient of gas lasers.
And these diode stacks are flashlight style when it comes to beam profile, even a single diode bar has usually 19 emitters with 500um spacing, making a 10mm line that you need to work with. These areonyl usefull for pumping lasers or anything not requiring a good beamprofile.
intereting!
so back to the initial diode of this threat.
would it be possible to make a heatsink efficient enough to cool this thing while running in non pulsed mode? or would the plastic of the diode melt before the heat can reach the heatsink?