High brightness cavity-controlled surface emitting GaInAs lasers operating at 980 nm

Abstract

Current high performance optical communication systems demand high power erbium doped fiber amplifiers. These amplifiers are powered by edge emitting 980 nm pump lasers, which are limited in optical power by catastrophic optical damage and require external gratings for wavelength stabilization. Conventional surface emitting lasers (Miller et al, 2000) have demonstrated very high powers from large apertures (320 /spl mu/m), but only in a highly multimode beam (/spl sim/3500 modes). In this paper, we report electrically pumped GaInAs surface emitting semiconductor lasers that have both the optical mode and the wavelength controlled by an extended cavity. These lasers have produced record power and brightness levels in both multi-mode and single-mode operation. Output power levels of more than 1 W CW from a multi-mode (beam quality parameter M/sup 2//spl sim/10-20) device and more than 500 mW CW in a TEM/sub 00/ mode (M/sup 2//spl sim/1.2) have been achieved.