High-brightness fiber-coupled single emitter arrays

Abstract

Commercial high power fiber coupled diode lasers reach power levels of 200W from a 0.2mm fiber, NA=0.2. 2D fiber coupled single emitter (SE) arrays are described delivering 500W from a 0.2mm fiber. The beam quality of standard 90μm single emitter (SE) is 6mm*mrad (slow axis) and 0.7mm*mrad (fast axis) including errors from fast axis lensing. 3 SEs (24) can be arranged in slow axis (fast axis) to fill the aperture for coupling into a 0.2mm fiber, NA=0.2. For high efficiency, beam shaping optics are avoided. A lens array for slow axis collimation and a focusing optic complete the fiber coupled module. 44 SEs' are arranged as a 2D array, polarization multiplexed and coupled into a 0.2mm fiber, NA=0.2. 62% optical to optical and 75% coupling efficiency are achieved, close to the modeled coupling efficiency of 80%. Alignment tolerances in the system do account for additional losses. Precise manufacturing processes are essential. The SEs on submounts are soldered in one reflow process to a common heatsink and FAC-lensing station automatically aligns the lens based on image processing ensuring minimum total lensing errors (focusing and pointing) of each SE to <15% of total spot size. Tighter tolerances during SE mounting, improved fast axis collimation and a redesigned coupling optic will increase the coupling efficiency to 80% resulting in 410W linear polarized output from the 0.2mm fiber, NA=0.2. Polarization (800W) and dense wavelength multiplexing (1.4kW) open the door to kilowatt level.