are most 9 mm laser diodes open-canned?

It seems that most laser diodes come in either 5.6 mm and 9 mm packages. I've seen a lot posts mentioning open can 9 mm diodes. Is it true that most 9 mm diodes are actually open-canned?

Also, does anyone whether the 808 nm pump diodes are 5.6 or 9 mm, and if they are open-canned or not? I do know that LOC and LCC diodes are very similar, except LOC diodes offer a bit more power but are more sensitive to the elements. I'd imagine that most companies would want to avoid LOC diodes because they are more fragile, etc.

Out of about 20-25 9mm diodes that I have back home, NOT ONE is open can.

Though, they did not come from pointers, they are bought,
But in pointers it's standard practise to put de-canned diodes in there so you can put the crystal array closer to the emitter dye without focusing optics between diode and crystal, saving costs of manufacturing, but also sacrifising quality.

Pump diodes can be found in both 5.6 and 9mm packages, along with B and C mount packages too. It all depends on what you have and what you want.

You can't have perfectly stable unit with 5.6mm decanned pump stuck into the back of the crystal. CNI's pens use a B-mount diode and one extra optic piece that focuses beam into the crystal, giving much better efficiency and final beam specifications.

Cheapo pointers do not use it, but are proportionally cheaper.

Thanks for the reply.

Eudaimonium said:

But in pointers it's standard practise to put de-canned diodes in there so you can put the crystal array closer to the emitter dye without focusing optics between diode and crystal, saving costs of manufacturing, but also sacrifising quality.

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This would explain why pen-sized lasers tend to exhibit more stability problems. I'm guessing that larger handheld/lab-style lasers would be more likely to contain a closed-can diode, right? After all, there are quite a few companies (such as Laserglow) that focus more on stability rather than output power.

ixfd64 said:

This would explain why pen-sized lasers tend to exhibit more stability problems. I'm guessing that larger handheld/lab-style lasers would be more likely to contain a closed-can diode, right? After all, there are quite a few companies (such as Laserglow) that focus more on stability rather than output power.

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Actually they focus on both.

DX and like suppliers focus on the price, actually on reducing it.
So they just slam the crystals in the face of the diode, rather than having more optics for proper beam collimation into the crystal like CNI and other more quality companies.

If cheap pointers were to use a closed can diode, it would not be possible to achieve great power since crystalwould need to be 1-2 mm from the face of the diode, and a lot of power would be lost and laser system would not work at all [unless you consider 1-2 mW out of 100mW-intended system to be working].

I did some searching, and it seems that most non-pen handheld lasers use C-mount diodes. Personally, I'm not a fan of C-mounts because the emitting area (the most fragile part of a diode) is not protected against the elements, but I guess it doesn't really matter because most end users won't open up their lasers.

Yeah well, I was talking about cheapo Newwish pens here, ofcourse that in higher power lasers you need a C-mount since I have not seen a 5.6 mm 808nm diode greater than 500mW and 9mm can greater than 1W declared output power.

Working with C-mounts is indeed tricky. Especially the little fragile FAC lens they have in front of the emitter. Break that, and you've lost good chuck of power, possibly stability of your DPSS.