Tapered semiconductor lasers have gained significant attention for their capability to achieve both high power and high beam quality. These lasers consist of an index-guided ridge waveguide and a gain-guided tapered amplifier. By implementing deep etching in the ridge section and introducing on-chip compressive stress in the tapered amplifier, the degree of polarization and beam quality of the laser output are improved. Combining the methods above, the polarization mismatch between the ridge and tapered sections is addressed and amplification efficiency is enhanced. The fabricated InGaAs/AlGaAs compressive strain single quantum well laser, emitting at a wavelength near 1μm, achieves continuous wave output of 11.57 W at tapered current of 14 A, with a degree of polarization exceeding 90%.
The high power diode lasers emission wavelength around 7xx nm are highly significant as pump sources for developing Rb alkali metal vapor laser and solid-state lasers based on thulium Tm: YAG. In this paper, 780 nm diode laser single emitter and bar have been designed and fabricated. The epitaxial layers were prepared by the metal organic chemical vapor deposition technology. GaAsP and GaInP were used as the quantum well and waveguide layer, respectively. The confinement layers were AlGaInP material with low refractive index. An amorphous ZnSe passivation layer was deposited on the laser cavity facets using ultra-high vacuum cleavage and passivation technology. The single emitter device with 150 μm width and 4 mm cavity length did not show the COMD phenomenon until 16.3 W continuous-wave output at 15 A. Meanwhile, The slope efficiency reached 1.27 W/A, and the electro-optic conversion efficiency was 58%. The divergence angle of slow-axis was 9.9°. In addition, the 1-cm laser bar with lateral emitter fill factors of 30% reached continuous-wave 180 W output power at 192 A, the electro-optic conversion efficiency was 50.7%, and the spectral width was 2.2nm.
In this paper, the tunable narrow spectral semiconductor laser technology based on on-chip DBR gratings is investigated. The surface DBR grating structure and electro-thermal tuning structure were designed, determined key parameters of grating structural, and the problem of multi-peak suppression was studied. Developed manufacturing technology for surface DBR gratings and tunable technology based on micro-electrode heaters and applied them to tapered MOPA laser chips, achieving output laser spectral locking while maintaining the high brightness of tapered semiconductor lasers. The tapered MOPA laser has achieved a narrow spectral width of 40 pm and a side mode suppression ratio of 35 dB under a continuous-wave power of 10.3 W. At a microelectrode heater current of 0.22 A, the wavelength can be continuously tuned over a range of 4.3 nm, with a maximum spectral width not exceeding 60 pm.
We researched the external cavity spectral beam combination (SBC) of laser diode (LD) with pigtail output. Two laser diodes with pigtail output, center wavelength of 976nm, and about 45% of electric-to-optical (e-o) conversion efficiency was employed to achieve spectral beam combination. This method demonstrated the feasibility of closed loop SBC of LD with pigtail. The free running spectrum, single laser spectrum with locked wavelength, after combination spectrum were measured. It showed that the spectral width of free running and tunnel range of single laser locked is about 12nm, 6nm respectively. The feedback efficiency of external cavity is about 1.55% when the transmission of cavity output mirror is about 30%. The combination power of 1.63W was obtained, the o-o(optical-to-optical) transferable efficiency is about 25%. The deterioration factor beam quality is about 1.2×, meanwhile, the efficiency loss of SBC and the reason of deterioration of beam quality were analyzed due to the internal loss of external cavity, the transmission loss of grating. In this way, the space stitching, configuration of single chip can transfer to fiber arrangement and organization, due to flexibility and miniaturization of fiber, that will provide a novel thinking for SBC of LD in high power direct application.
High-brightness tapered diode lasers generally work in the fundamental transverse mode. Still, under the condition of high power, the beam quality is often deteriorated by the influence of higher-order modes. At the junction of the device ridge waveguide and the conical amplifier, there is a great difference in the refractive index step △n, which is the key area for producing high-order modes and influencing each other. In this paper, the physical process of high-order side mode excitation in a large optical cavity InGaAs/AlGaAs conical LD was studied. The mode changes of the propagation interface were simulated by the eigenmode expansion method (EME). The effects of various separation distances of the beam spoilers were compared and verified by experiments. The results show that through the practical design of the separation distance of beam spoilers at the mode propagation interface, the tapered LD can maintain the high beam quality of M2=1.9 at 3.2 W.
High brightness broad area lasers with high polarization purity are highly efficient light sources for high brightness fiber coupled and direct semiconductor lasers. Effect of lateral index step on the performance of high-power broad-area 970-nm diode lasers based a large-optical-cavity waveguide structure was studied and presented here. The index step of the 80-μm wide ridge is found a key parameter to control the output power, lateral far-field angle, beam waist and polarization purity. The threshold current decreases with the increase of the etching depth while the slope efficiency increases. When gain guide lateral waveguide by very shallow etching was used, the beam waist expands to a size of more than 200 μm, which was attributed to anti-guiding effect and current spreading. When large index step is introduced by deep etching, enhanced filamentation was observed, which is attributed to an enhanced confinement of the higher order modes. What’s more, the strain introduced by the etching of the ridge can deteriorate the polarization purity. The study in this paper shows that the lateral index step should be optimized to fabricate high brightness high efficiency broad area lasers with high polarization purity.
In this research, the transversal mode of 970 nm broad area laser diode based on a large optical cavity is studied. The vertical far-field patterns were measured to be dependent on the cavity caused facet loss. High-orders modes achieve lasing with higher facet loss while they can be completely suppressed by a low facet loss. The suppression of high-order modes was attributed to be an increase in the discrimination of differential quantum efficiency between high-order modes and the fundamental mode, which matches well with simulation. When the discrimination exceeds probable fluctuations, the high-order modes will be completely suppressed and lasing of single fundamental mode will achieve. According to our experiment results, the optimal resonance cavity length is about 6 mm in order to realize fundamental mode and simultaneously a high slope efficiency. As a consequence, high efficiency 970 nm broad area laser with slope efficiency over 1.07 W/A and full wavelength half maximum (FWHM) less than 2 nm@1A is demonstrated.
KEYWORDS: Semiconductor lasers, Waveguides, Refractive index, Neodymium, Laser applications, Far-field diffraction, High power lasers, Laser energy, Optical resonators, Near field
In this research, the transversal mode of 970 nm broad area laser diode based on a large optical cavity is studied. The vertical far-field patterns were measured to be dependent on the cavity caused facet loss. High-orders modes achieve lasing with higher facet loss while they can be completely suppressed by a low facet loss. The suppression of high-order modes was attributed to be an increase in the discrimination of differential quantum efficiency between high-order modes and the fundamental mode, which matches well with simulation. When the discrimination exceeds probable fluctuations, the high-order modes will be completely suppressed and lasing of single fundamental mode will achieve. According to our experiment results, the optimal resonance cavity length is about 6 mm in order to realize fundamental mode and simultaneously a high slope efficiency. As a consequence, high efficiency 970 nm broad area laser with slope efficiency over 1.07 W/A and full wavelength half maximum (FWHM) less than 2 nm@1A is demonstrated.
KEYWORDS: Semiconductor lasers, Diffraction gratings, Diffraction, Deep ultraviolet, High power lasers, Nonlinear frequency conversion, Polarization, Laser systems engineering, Second-harmonic generation, Crystals
We reported a high-power narrowband blue diode laser which is suitable for subsequent nonlinear frequency conversion into the deep ultraviolet (DUV) spectral range. The laser is based on an external cavity diode laser (ECDL) system using a commercially available GaN-based high-power blue laser diode emitting at 448 nm. Longitudinal mode selection is realized by using a surface diffraction grating in Littrow configuration. The diffraction efficiency of the grating was optimized by controlling the polarization state of the laser beam incident on the grating. A maximum optical output power of 3.1 W in continuous-wave operation with a spectral width of 60 pm and a side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) larger than 10 dB at 448.4 nm is achieved. Based on the experimental spectra and output powers, the theoretical efficiency and output power of the subsequent nonlinear frequency conversion were calculated according to the Boyd– Kleinman theory. The single-pass conversion efficiency and output power is expected to be 1.9×10-4 and 0.57 mW, respectively, at the 3.1 W output power of the ECDL. The high-power narrowband blue diode laser is very promising as pump source in the subsequent nonlinear frequency conversion.
Beam quality of tapered laser diodes is limited by higher order lateral mode. On purpose of optimizing the brightness of tapered laser diodes, we developed a novel design of tapered diodes. This devices based on InGaAs/AlGaAs asymmetry epitaxial structure, containing higher order lateral mode filtering schemes especially photonic crystal structures, which fabricated cost effectively by using standard photolithography and dry etch processes. Meanwhile, the effects of photonic crystal structures on mode control are also investigated theoretically by FDBPM (Finite-Difference Beam Propagation Method) calculation. We achieved a CW optical output power of 6.9W at 940nm for a single emitter with 4 mm cavity length. A nearly diffraction limited beam of M2 ≈1.9 @ 0.5W has been demonstrated, and a highest brightness of β =75MW/(cm2 ·sr) was reached.
For many applications, laser diodes with very narrow and stable emission wavelength are needed. The realization of mode selection by an external cavity system with a grating is widely used. The influence of longitudinal mode selection by external grating on the filamentation and catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) of 970 nm broad area single emitters is studied in this paper. The emitters worked at three configurations: free running, with 10% mirror feedback (mirror lasers), and 10% grating feedback (grating lasers). The grating lasers showed very short lifetime caused by COMD, while the free-running lasers and mirror lasers show no power degradation. The COMD was confirmed by optical microscope showing cracking and melting of the optical antireflective (AR) coatings. By observing the near-field pattern of the three lasers, the COMD of the grating lasers was attributed to the pronounced filamentation induced by the grating feedback. What’s more, the filamentations vary when the locked wavelength change which indicates that the carrier dynamics thus the refractive index profile is very sensitive to the locked lasing wavelength.
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