The limits to the continuous-wave (CW) output power of the GaAs-based high-power diode lasers with an asymmetric photon density along the resonator are experimentally investigated. Spontaneous emission measurement in CW mode and electro-optical characterization both in CW and short pulse mode have been performed to clarify the impact of temperature, bias, and photon density profile on CW output power. Diode lasers with a 90 µm stripe and 6 mm resonator have been fabricated with a backside metallization window along the resonator to measure spontaneous emission intensity (and hence relative carrier density) profile and wavelength to infer temperature. Also, the longitudinal photon density profile has been varied using 98% rear facet reflectivity and 0.8% and 20% front facet reflectivities. Spontaneous emission data demonstrates that asymmetric photon density leads to non-uniform carrier density with higher carrier density at the back facet and increasing temperature at the front compared to the back facet, due to the longitudinal spatial hole burning (LSHB) effect, which becomes more severe with bias. Spontaneous emission data also shows that carriers accumulate at the front facet stripe edges, which can be attributed to the higher temperature at the front facet and lateral spatial hole burning. Further, light-current characteristics in pulse mode show that non-uniform carrier density triggers losses at high temperatures, increasing threshold and reducing internal efficiency. The reduction in internal efficiency becomes much larger in CW operation, due to the large lateral and longitudinal local temperature variations, which lead to strong carrier accumulation at the front stripe edges.
We report progress in the development of GaAs-based laser diodes with ultra-wide stripe widths of W = 1200 μm emitting at a wavelength of λ = 915 nm. In order to restrict ring oscillations and higher order modes in these ultra-wide devices we utilise periodic current structuring with a period of 29 μm and width of 20 μm. We compare the performance of a device with current structuring realised through contact layer implantation of the device after epitaxial growth, termed a 'Contact Implant' laser, and a device with buried current structuring close to the active region of the device realised using two step epitaxial regrowth and Buried-Regrown-Implant-Structure (BRIS) technology, termed a 'BRIS' laser. Quasi-Continuous Wave (QCW) measurement of the devices show that both the 'Contact Implant' and 'BRIS' laser achieve a very high peak output power of Popt = 200 W at a power conversion efficiency of ηE = 59% and ηE = 52%, respectively, with a peak efficiency of around 70%. QCW beam-quality measurements show that the 'BRIS' laser has a much reduced 95% power content far-field angle of 9°, compared to 12.7° for the 'contact implant' laser, at a power of Popt = 100 W. Under Continuous Wave (CW) operation the 'contact implant' laser reaches an output power of Popt = 68 W at ηE = 57% and the 'BRIS' laser reaches Popt = 53 W at ηE = 50%, but with a reduced far-field angle of 11.9° at Popt = 40 W for the 'BRIS' laser.
Epi-down mounting can degrade performance in broad area lasers when the stress field extends into the active region. Thick p-side epitaxial layers have the potential to isolate the device from external stress, but add electrical resistance and losses from current spreading. Therefore, we use two-step epitaxy to combine highly-doped p-side epitaxial layers (2x thicker than conventional) with a resistive oxygen-implanted layer located close to the active region to block lateral current spreading. The resulting buried-regrown-implant-structure (BRIS) lasers with 100 μm stripes and lasing wavelength of 915 nm show high efficiency (peak of 67%, 55% at 20 W) and high lateral brightness (3.3 W/mm·mrad up to 17.5 W output power), improved over reference devices, in spite of the thick p-side.
Asymmetric photon density (recombination-rate) along the high-power diode laser cavity leads to longitudinal-spatialhole- burning (LSHB), which limits maximum output power. Here, we summarize recent investigations on the impact of LSHB on current (longitudinal) and carrier (lateral and longitudinal) density distribution and hence total-recombination for continuous-wave (CW) operations. Custom diode lasers with 90 μm stripe and 3000-6000 μm resonator have been fabricated with segmented p-side contact to measure local current density and backside metallization window to measure relative carrier density (via spontaneous intensity) and infer temperature (via wavelength). Also, 98% back facet reflectivity and 0.8% and 20% front facet reflectivities have been used to vary the photon density profile and hence severity of hole-burning. We present data showing that current crowds at the front facet due to the high recombinationrate, which becomes more severe as the bias and resonator length increase. The current crowding effect is reduced using higher front facet reflectivity. Longitudinal one-dimensional simulation is broadly consistent with experiments at low bias; however, the current crowding effect is substantially stronger in the experiment than simulation at high bias. Further, spatially-resolved-spontaneous-emission measurements of intensity and wavelength demonstrate that the longitudinal carrier density is also non-uniform with a higher carrier density at the back facet for 0.8% front facet reflectivity, even at low bias, while it is flat for devices with 20%. At high bias, temperature increases at the front facet, leading to lateral carrier accumulation at the stripe edges, higher current and carrier density, which is not included in the simulation.
GaAs based high power broad area lasers are the most efficient source of optical energy and are used in many industrial applications. Despite considerable improvement in power and efficiency in recent years, further improvement is needed due to the high demand from industry. We review here progress in vertical epitaxial layer design, showing how higher performance is enabled by migrating from asymmetric large optical cavity (ASLOC) designs to the newly developed extreme-triple-asymmetric (ETAS) vertical structure. Building on earlier studies at 940 nm, we focus on gain-guided lasers that have operating wavelength 970 nm, have 90 μm stripe width and 4 mm resonator length. We can emphasize the positive impact of epitaxial layer design, without need for advanced lateral structures. We show how design improvement increases conversion efficiency ηΕ at 12 W output power from 56% to 66%, whilst peak (saturation) power increases from Popt = 14 to 19 W in continuous wave (CW) mode for p-down single emitters on CuW carriers (thermal resistance 3 K/W). Progress in epitaxial design also leads to smaller lateral beam parameter product (BP Plat) at higher bias, leading to lateral brightness Popt/BPPlat < 3 W/mm × mrad. Specifically, in these most recent ETAS structures, by design BPPlat increases more slowly with self-heating, and this leads directly to lower BPPlat at high bias. We will also review options for further increased performance, include efforts to understand and improve BPPlat, which is also limited by a non-thermal ground level BPP0 (here ∼ 1 mm × mrad).
Mid-infrared (MIR) solid state lasers based on thulium and holmium-doped crystals are of increasing interest in applications in medicine, material processing and particle physics. Thulium-doped lasers can be efficiently pumped at wavelengths around 780 nm and diode laser pumps with high conversion efficiency and high intensity are sought at this wavelength. Diode lasers integrated in laser stacks suitable for high duty cycle pumping are of particular interest for high energy class applications, especially when realizable without need for the additional cost and reliability hazard of microchannel cooling. However, high efficiency and reliable power is more challenging to realize at 780 nm than around 940…980 nm, due to limitations on the capability of the available semiconductor materials. Progress is therefore presented here in the design, realization and test of 780 nm pump sources suitable for high energy class pump applications, using GaAs-based TM-polarized diode lasers. We show how power per device can be increased from 4 W for conventional single emitters (90…100 μm) up to 60 W at high duty cycle (10%) and long pulse length (10 ms) for high brightness large aperture emitters (with 1200 μm aperture, equivalent to around 500 W per bar), at the cost of reduced operating efficiency (from 60 to 50%). We show progress in integrating these large aperture emitters into novel passively (macro-channel) edge-cooled stacks, that are then suitable for use in pumping high energy class Th:YAG laser systems.
The self-heating of semiconductor lasers contributes directly to facet heating and consequently to the critical temperature for catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) but the existing facet engineering methods do not address this issue. Targeting this problem, we report experimental and modeling results that demonstrate a new method achieving facet temperatures significantly lower than the laser cavity temperature in GaAs-based high-power semiconductor lasers by using electrically isolated and pumped windows. Owing to monolithic integration, the method does not introduce any penalty on the efficiency and output power of the laser. Thermal modeling results show that the laser output facet can be almost totally isolated from heat generated in the laser cavity and near cold-cavity facet temperatures are possible. The method can be applied to single emitters, laser bars, and monolithically integrated lasers in photonic integrated circuits to improve their reliability and operating performance.
The main optical output power limitation in high power laser diodes is the catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) initiated by facet heating due to optical absorption, which limits the reliable power and lifetime of a single laser. Facet heating correlated with current injection near laser facets can be reduced by unpumped window structure. However, the high-power laser slope efficiency drops as the length of the window increases. In this work, separately pumped window (SPW) method is proposed and experimentally demonstrated to significantly reduce the facet temperature of the semiconductor lasers without compromising their performance. We used 5-mm long high-power laser diodes and compared its performance and facet temperature to the devices integrated with SPW facet sections, which are electrically isolated from the laser section. The slope efficiencies of the lasers with SPW and that of 5-mm lasers without SPW are comparable when SPW is pumped at its transparency current, illustrating that SPW integrated lasers preserve their slope efficiency. As the window pumping current increases, the threshold current of the laser with SPW decreases when the SPW approaches transparency. The facet temperature rise (ΔT) of the lasers were measured by the thermoreflectance method. The ΔT measured at waveguide regions of lasers was shown to be reduced by 42% implementing SPW region to conventional lasers. Therefore, SPW technique was shown to be a promising approach to increase the COMD level of the high-power laser diodes and it opens up a new avenue for reliable semiconductor laser operation at very high output power levels.
Catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) is a key issue in semiconductor lasers and it is initiated by facet heating because of optical absorption. To reduce optical absorption, the most promising method is to form non-absorbing mirror structures at the facets by obtaining larger bandgap through impurity-free vacancy disordering (IFVD). To apply an IFVD process while fabricating high-power laser diodes, intermixing window and intermixing suppression regions are needed. Increasing the bandgap difference (ΔE) between these regions improves the laser lifetime. In this report, SrF2 (versus SixO2/SrF2 bilayer) and SiO2 dielectric films are used to suppress and enhance the intermixing, respectively. However, defects are formed during the annealing process of single layer SrF2 causing detrimental effects on the semiconductor laser performance. As an alternative method, SixO2/SrF2 bilayer films with a thin SixO2 dielectric layer is employed to obtain high epitaxial quality during annealing with small penalty on the suppression effect. We demonstrate record large ΔE of 125 meV. Broad area laser diodes were fabricated by the IFVD process. Fabricated high-power semiconductor lasers demonstrated conservation of quantum efficiency with high intermixing selectivity. The differential quantum efficiencies are 81%, 74%, 66% and 46% for as grown, bilayer protected, SrF2 protected and QWI lasers, respectively. High power laser diodes using bilayer dielectric films outperformed single-layer based approach in terms of the fundamental operational parameters of lasers. Comparable results obtained for the as-grown and annealed bilayer protected lasers promises a novel method to fabricate high power laser diodes with superior performance and reliability.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.