Wavelength-stabilized high-brightness single emitters are commonly used in fiber-coupled laser diode modules for pumping Yb-doped lasers at 976 nm, and Nd-doped ones at 808 nm. We investigate the spectral behavior of single emitters under wavelength-selective feedback from a volume Bragg (or hologram) grating (VBG) in a multi-emitter module.
By integrating a full VBG model as a multi-layer thin film structure with commercial raytracing software, we simulated wavelength locking conditions as a function of beam divergence and angular alignment tolerances. Good correlation between the simulated VBG feedback strength and experimentally measured locking ranges, in both VBG misalignment angle and laser temperature, is demonstrated.
The challenges of assembling multi-emitter modules based on beam-stacked optical architectures are specifically addressed, where the wavelength locking conditions must be achieved simultaneously with high fiber coupling efficiency for each emitter in the module. It is shown that angular misorientation between fast and slow-axis collimating optics can have a dramatic effect on the spectral and power performance of the module.
We report the development of our NEON-S wavelength-stabilized fiber laser pump module, which uses a VBG to provide wavelength-selective optical feedback in the collimated portion of the beam. Powered by our purpose-developed high-brightness single emitters, the module delivers 47 W output at 11 A from an 0.15 NA fiber and a 0.3 nm linewidth at 976 nm. Preliminary wavelength-locking results at 808 nm are also presented.
Fiber laser manufacturers demand high-brightness laser diode pumps delivering optical pump energy in both a compact
fiber core and narrow angular content. A pump delivery fiber of a 105 μm core and 0.22 numerical aperture (NA) is
typically used, where the fiber NA is under-filled to ease the launch of laser diode emission into the fiber and make the
fiber tolerant to bending. At SCD, we have developed high-brightness NEON multi-emitter fiber-coupled pump modules
that deliver 50 W output from a 105 μm, 0.15 NA fiber enabling low-NA power delivery to a customer’s fiber laser
network.
Brightness-enhanced single emitters are engineered with ultra-low divergence for compatibility with the low-NA
delivery fiber, with the latest emitters delivering 14 W with 95% of the slow-axis energy contained within an NA of
0.09. The reduced slow-axis divergence is achieved with an optimized epitaxial design, where the peak optical intensity
is reduced to both lessen filamentation within the laser cavity and reduce the power density on the output facet thus
increasing the emitter reliability.
The low mode filling of the fiber allows it to be coiled with diameters down to 70 mm at full operating power despite the
small NA and further eliminates the need for mode-stripping at fiber combiners and splices downstream from our pump
modules. 50W fiber pump products at 915, 950 and 975 nm wavelengths are presented, including a wavelengthstabilized
version at 976 nm.
Fiber laser manufacturers demand high-brightness laser diode pumps delivering optical pump energy in both a compact
fiber core and narrow angular content. A pump delivery fiber of a 105 μm core and 0.22 numerical aperture (NA) is
typically used, where the fiber NA is under-filled to ease the launch of laser diode emission into the fiber and make the
fiber tolerant to bending. At SCD, we have developed multi-emitter fiber-coupled pump modules that deliver 50 W
output from a 105 μm, 0.15 NA fiber at 915, 950 and 976 nm wavelengths enabling low-NA power delivery to a
customer’s fiber laser network.
In this work, we address the challenges of coupling and propagating high optical powers from laser diode sources in
weakly guiding step-index multimode fibers. We present simulations of light propagation inside the low-NA multimode
fiber for different launch conditions and fiber bend diameters using a ray-racing tool and demonstrate how these affect
the injection of light into cladding-bounded modes. The mode filling at launch and source NA directly limit the bend
radius at which the fiber can be coiled. Experimentally, we measure the fiber bend loss using our 50 W fiber-coupled
module and establish a critical bend diameter in agreement with our simulation results. We also employ thermal imaging
to investigate fiber heating caused by macro-bends and angled cleaving.
The low mode filling of the 0.15 NA fiber by our brightness-enhanced laser diodes allows it to be coiled with diameters
down to 70 mm at full operating power despite the low NA and further eliminates the need for mode-stripping at fiber
combiners and splices downstream from our pump modules.
Fiber-coupled laser diodes have become essential sources for fiber laser pumping and direct energy applications. Single emitters offer reliable multi-watt output power from a 100 m lateral emission aperture. By their combination and fiber coupling, pump powers up to 100 W can be achieved from a low-NA fiber pigtail. Whilst in the 9xx nm spectral range the single emitter technology is very mature with <10W output per chip, at 800nm the reliable output power from a single emitter is limited to 4 W – 5 W. Consequently, commercially available fiber coupled modules only deliver 5W – 15W at around 800nm, almost an order of magnitude down from the 9xx range pumps. To bridge this gap, we report our advancement in the brightness and reliability of 800nm single emitters. By optimizing the wafer structure, laser cavity and facet passivation process we have demonstrated QCW device operation up to 19W limited by catastrophic optical damage to the 100 μm aperture. In CW operation, the devices reach 14 W output followed by a reversible thermal rollover and a complete device shutdown at high currents, with the performance fully rebounded after cooling. We also report the beam properties of our 800nm single emitters and provide a comparative analysis with the 9xx nm single emitter family. Pump modules integrating several of these emitters with a 105 μm / 0.15 NA delivery fiber reach 35W in CW at 808 nm. We discuss the key opto-mechanical parameters that will enable further brightness scaling of multi-emitter pump modules.
In the past years, reducing the thickness of the absorber layer in CIGS-based solar cells has become a key issue to reduce the global Indium consumption and thus increased its competitiveness. As the absorber thickness is reduced, less photons are absorbed and consequently the efficiency decreases. It is well known that scattering light in the absorbing layer increases the effective optical length, which results in enhanced absorption. In this study, we have deposited a transparent conductive oxide as a back contact to the cell with a white paint on the rear surface to diffuse the light back to the cell. A proof of concept device is realized and optically characterized. Modeling scattering by rough surfaces can be done by brute force numerical simulations but does not provide a physical insight in the absorption mechanisms. In our approach, we regard the collimated solar light and its specular reection/transmission as coherent. On an irregular surface, part of the collimated light is scattered in other directions. To model this diffuse light, we adopt the formalism of the radiative transfer equation, which is an energy transport equation. Thus, interference effects are accounted for only in the coherent part. A special attention is dedicated to preserving reciprocity and energy conservation on the interface. It is seen that most of the absorption near the energy bandgap of CIGS is due to the diffuse light and that this approach can yield very significant photocurrent gains below 500nm absorber thickness.
In high temperature and vacuum applications, for which heat transfer is predominantly by radiation, the material's
surface texture is of substantial importance. Control of thermal emission is of crucial concern in the design of infrared
sources, in electronic chip coolants, in high-efficiency photovoltaic cells, and in solar energy conversion. Thermal
emission has been shown to be modified by utilizing the high density of states of surface waves (surface plasmon
polaritons and surface phonon polaritons) and their long-range propagation. We present subwavelength structures -
metastructures supporting surface waves for obtaining polarization manipulation of thermal emission, extraordinary
coherent thermal radiation, bandgap in the spectral emission, and a broadband infrared absorption. A spin-dependent
dispersion splitting was obtained in a structure consisting of a coupled thermal antenna array. The effect is due to a spinorbit
interaction resulting from the dynamics of the surface waves propagating along the structure whose local anisotropy
axis is rotated in space. The dispersion splitting due to the spin-orbit coupling is also known as the key feature in such
remarkable effects as the Rashba splitting and the spin-Hall effect, which indicates the generic nature of the discussed
phenomenon. The observation of the spin-symmetry breaking in thermal radiation paves the way to manipulate
spontaneous emission with the photons' intrinsic degree of freedom and provides the basis for future spinoptics devices.
This study addresses the potential of different approaches to improve the generated current density in ultrathin
Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) based solar cells down to 0.1 μm. Advanced photon management, involving both absorption
enhancement and reflection reduction in the absorber, is studied. In this contribution, the three main approaches used
are:
- The reduction of the CIGSe thickness by chemical etching which combines thickness reduction and smoothing effect
on the absorber.
- Optical management by front contact engineering and by the replacement of the back contact by the "lift-off" of CIGSe
layer from the Mo layer and the deposition of a new reflective back contact.
- Application of plasmonic structures to CIGSe solar cells enabling light confinement at the subwavelength scale.
An extraordinary coherent thermal emission from an anisotropic microstructure is experimentally and theoretically
presented. The enhanced coherency is due to coherent coupling between resonant cavities obtained by surface standing
waves, where each cavity supports a localized field that is attributed to coupled surface phonon-polaritons. We show that
it is possible to obtain a polarized quasi-monochromatic thermal source from a SiC microstructure with a high quality
factor Q ~ 600 at the resonant frequency of the cavity, and a spatial coherence length 760λ which corresponds to angular
divergence of 1.3mrad.
Surface waves have been shown to play a key role in spontaneous thermal emission in the near-field as well as the
coherence and the polarization properties of the nonradiative field. The near-field coherence of the delocalized
nonradiative surface waves can be transferred into radiative fields by introducing a shallow grating on the surface. We
show that the coherency of the thermal radiation can be enhanced by an order of magnitude compared with the
coherency imposed by the delocalized surface waves. The enhanced coherency is due to coherent coupling between
resonant cavities obtained by surface standing waves, where each cavity supports localized field that is attributed to
coupled surface waves. We realized coupled resonant cavity structure on amorphous SiO2 and crystalline SiC, both
support surface phonon-polaritons, to demonstrate extraordinary coherent thermal emission with a high quality factor of
600 and a spatial coherence length of 760λ (8.8mm).
The Pancharatnam-Berry phase is a geometric phase associated with the polarization of light. We present novel optical
phase elements based on the space-domain Pancharatnam-Berry phase. Such elements can be realized using
inhomogeneous anisotropic micro and nanostructures, where the geometric phase is induced by spin-to orbital angular
momentum transfer. The elements are polarization dependent, thereby enabling multipurpose optical elements. Vectorial
vortices, and vectorial vortex mode transformation for a hollow waveguide are demonstrated. Manipulating of thermal
radiation by use of anisotropic micro and nanostructures is also investigated. We demonstrate an extraordinary coherent
thermal radiation from coupled resonant cavities; each of them supports standing wave surface polaritons.
Space-variant polarization manipulation of enhanced omnidirectional thermal emission in a narrow spectral peak is
presented. The emission is attributed to surface phonon-polariton excitation from space-variant subwavelength SiO2
gratings. Polarization manipulation was obtained by discretely controlling the local orientation of the grating. We
experimentally demonstrated thermal emission in an axially symmetric polarization distribution. We show that by
coupling surface phonon-polaritons to a propagating field, large anisotropy of the emissivity is obtained within a narrow
spectral range. We experimentally demonstrate this effect by fabricating a space-variant subwavelength grating on a SiO2
substrate to encrypt an image in the polarization state of a thermal radiation field. Theoretical calculations based on
rigorous coupled-wave analysis are presented along with experimental results.
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