Patent ID: 7760775

Claim:
A laser beam generating apparatus comprising: a laser diode; and a second harmonic generating element that performs a wavelength conversion on fundamental light emitted from the laser diode, wherein the laser diode is an external resonance-type laser diode which comprises: a broad-area-type laser diode which oscillates a laser beam in which a transversal (spatial) mode is a multimode, and emits light beams in a first direction and a second direction; and an external resonator structure, which comprises: beam shaping elements, which collimate the light beam emitted in the first direction and the light beam emitted in the second direction, respectively; and a partial reflective mirror, in which a reflective region is adjusted to reflect partially the light beam emitted in the first direction, and the light beam reflected by the partial reflective mirror is returned to the broad-area-type laser diode, the laser diode emits a transversal single mode laser beam in the second direction, and the second harmonic generating element is a waveguide-type second harmonic generating element that includes a single mode waveguide.