76% efficient cryogenically-cooled eyesafe diode laser for resonant pumping of Er-doped gain media

Abstract

There is great interest in the development of high-power, high-efficiency InP-based broad area pump diode lasers operating in the 14xx-15xx nm band to be used for resonant-pumping of Er-doped solid state lasers. Cryogenic cooling of diode lasers can provide great benefit to performance, arising from the dramatic reduction in the threshold current and the increase in the diode’s slope efficiency. These improvements are attributed to reduction in the non-radiative losses and leakage current associated with thermionic emission of carriers from the quantum well. This is, however, at the expense of a large increase in the diode voltage, limiting the power conversion efficiency at cryogenic temperatures. In this work, we report on the development of high-power, high-efficiency diode lasers and stacked arrays operating at 15xx-nm, which are specifically designed and optimized for operation at cryogenic temperatures. We show that the diode voltage defects under cryogenic operation can be greatly reduced through reducing the energy band offsets at the hetero-interface, and through material change to reduce the dopant ionization energy, effectively mitigating carrier freeze-out at low temperatures. Optical cavity designs and band engineering optimization are also explored for low intrinsic optical loss and low carrier leakage. A peak power conversion efficiency of >74% was demonstrated at a temperature of ~100K in a 15xx-nm single emitter. Record high peak conversion efficiency of 71% and peak power of > 500 W were also demonstrated in a stacked array, under QCW pulses of 1 ms and 10 Hz.