Folded cavity angled-grating broad-area lasers

Abstract

The angled-grating broad-area laser is a promising candidate for high power, high brightness diode laser source. The key point in the design is the angled gratings which can simultaneously support the unique snake-like zigzag lasing mode and eliminate the direct Fabry-Perot (FP) feedback. Unlike a conventional laser waveguide mode, the phase front of the zigzag mode periodically changes along the propagation direction. By use of the mirror symmetry of the zigzag mode, we propose and demonstrate the folded cavity angled-grating broad-area lasers. One benefit of this design is to reduce the required wafer space compared to a regular angled-grating broad-area laser, especially in a long cavity laser for high power operation. Experimental results show that the folded cavity laser exhibits good beam quality in far field with a slightly larger threshold and smaller slope efficiency due to the additional interface loss.