Broad-area Laser Diodes Research Articles

Wide-Spectrum Tuning and Narrowing of 780 nm Broad-Area Diode Laser with Littrow-Type Transmission Gratings

Spectrum-narrowed and -locked broad-area diode lasers operating at 780 nm are essential for rubidium laser development. With the help of Littrow-type transmission gratings, we demonstrated a simple scheme with a narrow linewidth and the diode laser’s center wavelength locked without thermal drift, in contrast to volume Bragg gratings. By carefully collimating the diode laser beam, we realized a linewidth narrower than 0.17 nm and a side-mode suppression ratio over 20 dB. Furthermore, broad-spectrum tuning at 9 nm was demonstrated by grating angle tuning. This method could easily be adapted to other wavelength diode lasers.

Continuous wave operation of broad area and ridge waveguide laser diodes at 626 nm

AbstractThe authors present continuous wave (CW) high‐power broad area and ridge waveguide lasers with laser emission at 626 nm at room temperature. For this, the authors employ GaAs‐based diode lasers in the AlGaInP system for laser emission at 626 nm at room temperature. The laser structure is grown on three‐inch wafers by metal organic vapour phase epitaxy. Broad area and ridge waveguide lasers are fabricated. Pulsed broad area laser characterisation on bar level shows laser operation at 20 C heat sink temperature. The authors measured peak lasing wavelengths as short as 625 nm and total maximum output power of both facets up to 1.4 W at an injection current of 2 A. Both, broad area and ridge waveguide lasers show laser operation and CW excitation at room temperature. The ridge waveguide lasers emit output powers of over 90 mW at 626 nm at a maximum injection current of 200 mA with a nearly diffraction‐limited beam profile.

High-efficiency and high-brightness broad area laser diodes with buried implantation current blocking

Buried-regrown-implant-structure (BRIS) technology combines two-step epitaxial regrowth with an intermediate ion implantation step in order to realise a buried current aperture close to the active region of a laser diode. In this paper we carry out a systematic performance comparison demonstrating the benefit of BRIS technology in single emitter broad-area lasers (BALs). We investigate stripe width W = 100 μ m and resonator length L = 4 mm single emitter lasers emitting at wavelength λ = 915 nm, comparing the performance of BRIS devices with different implantation depths with reference devices with only contact layer implantation. We show that using BRIS technology we achieve a continuous wave output power of 20 W at 57% efficiency, with a peak efficiency of 68%, and maintain a lateral brightness of 3.4 mm · mrad up to 19 W, improved over the reference devices due to reduced lateral current spreading in the BRIS devices. Further, we show results of ongoing aging experiments, which has shown no device degradation up to 5000 hours from BRIS devices.

Double-Junction Cascaded GaAs-Based Broad-Area Diode Lasers with 132W Continuous Wave Output Power

Improving the output power and efficiency of broad-area diode lasers is a prerequisite for the further development of fiber lasers, solid-state laser industries, and direct semiconductor laser applications. At present, the large amount of Joule heat generated by large drive currents and limited wall-plug efficiency presents the largest challenge for improving these lasers. In this paper, a multi-junction cascade laser with low Joule heat generation is demonstrated, showing large power and conversion efficiency. We fabricated devices with different junction numbers and compared their output power. We present double-junction lasers emitting at ~915 nm with an emitter width of 500 μm, delivering 132.5 W continuous wave output power at 70 A, which is the highest power reported so far for any single-emitter laser. The power conversion efficiencies are 66.7% and 60%, at 100 W and 132 W, respectively.

Thermal Lensing Effect Reduction on High-Power Multi-Mode Diode Lasers

High-power broad-area diode lasers are needed for a variety of applications. However, such lasers suffer from deteriorated beam quality due to multimode behavior in the lateral direction at high power. We propose an approach to reduce the thermal lensing effect by introducing a thermal compensation layer. As a result of reducing the thermal lensing effect, we demonstrated that the lateral divergence angle was reduced by 16.2%, the lateral beam parameter product was reduced by 12.8%, and the lateral brightness was increased by 18.4% for 230 μm wide diode operating at 50 A current while maintaining a good output power.

A Composite Cavity for Mode Control in Broad-Area Diode Laser

A unstable cavity structure composed of the arc-shaped cavity, Fabry-Perot cavity, and sidewall saw-tooth microstructure is proposed to achieve mode selection in high-power broad-area diode laser with 980nm wavelength. In this cavity, the loss difference between the higher-order modes and the fundamental mode is increased to suppress the lasing of higher-order modes. The lateral divergence is reduced by about 28%. The number of modes in the near-field spot is reduced and the light intensity is concentrated towards the center of the Near-field profile. Also, the lateral beam parameter product decreases by 15%.

High-power diode lasers with in-situ-structured lateral current blocking for improved threshold, efficiency and brightness

We present high-power GaAs-based broad-area diode lasers with a novel variant of the enhanced self-aligned lateral structure ‘eSAS’, having a strongly reduced lasing threshold and improved peak conversion efficiency and beam quality in comparison to their standard gain-guided counterparts. To realize this new variant (eSAS-V2), a two-step epitaxial growth process involving in situ etching is used to integrate current-blocking layers, optimized for tunnel current suppression, within the p-Al0.8GaAs cladding layer of an extreme-triple-asymmetric epitaxial structure with a thin p-side waveguide. The blocking layers are thus in close proximity to the active zone, resulting in strong suppression of current spreading and lateral carrier accumulation. eSAS-V2 devices with 4 mm resonator length and varying stripe widths are characterized and compared to previous eSAS variant (eSAS-V1) as well as gain-guided reference devices, all having the same dimensions and epitaxial structure. Measurement results show that the new eSAS-V2 variant eliminates an estimated 89% of lateral current spreading, resulting in a strong threshold current reduction of 29% at 90 μm stripe width, while slope and series resistance are broadly unchanged. The novel eSAS-V2 devices also maintain high conversion efficiency up to high continuous-wave optical power, with an exemplary 90 μm device having 51.5% at 20 W. Near-field width is significantly narrowed in both eSAS variants, but eSAS-V2 exhibits a wider far-field angle, consistent with the presence of index guiding. Nonetheless, eSAS-V2 achieves higher beam quality and lateral brightness than gain-guided reference devices, but the index guiding in this realization prevents it from surpassing eSAS-V1. Overall, the different performance benefits of the eSAS approach are clearly demonstrated.

48 W Continuous-Wave Output From a High- Efficiency Single Emitter Laser Diode at 915 nm

Improving the power and efficiency of 9xx-nm broad-area laser diodes has a great help in reducing the cost of laser systems and expanding applications. This letter presents an optimized epitaxial structure with high power and conversion efficiency. Laser diodes with 230 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> emitter width and 5 mm cavity length deliver continuous-wave output power up to 48.5 W at 48 A, 30 °C, the highest power reported for 9xx-nm single emitter lasers so far. The slope efficiency is as high as 1.23 W/A due to a low internal optical loss of 0.31 cm−1 and a high internal efficiency of 96%. The maximum power conversion efficiency reaches 72.6% at 15.3 W and 67.3% at the operating power of 30 W under a heatsink temperature of 25 °C. Life test results show no failure in 1000 hours for 55 laser diodes.

Catastrophic optical damage in 808 nm broad area laser diodes: a study of the dark line defect propagation

We present a study of the propagation of dark line defects (DLDs) in catastrophically damaged 808 nm laser diodes, based on cathodoluminescence (CL) measurements and laser mode propagation simulations. Room temperature CL images show blurred DLDs running parallel to the laser cavity. Remarkably, low temperature images reveal their true morphology: the blurred lines are resolved as parallel narrow discontinuous DLDs. This morphology does not match the usually reported molten front scenario of DLD propagation. Low temperature images show that DLDs consist of a sequence of catastrophic optical damage (COD) events separated a few micrometers from each other. Consequently, a different propagation scheme is proposed. The points where the CODs occur suffer a temperature increase and these hot spots play a capital role in the propagation of the DLDs. Their influence on the beam distribution is modelled using finite element methods. The calculations evidence changes on the intensity distribution of the laser that qualitatively reproduce the DLD shapes. Additionally, the COD events result in the generation of defects in the region that surrounds them. The successive CODs in the discontinuous DLDs are rationalized in terms of the enhanced laser absorption in these sensitized regions where the laser beam is concentrated by thermal lensing.

High Brightness Diode Lasers Based on Beam Splitting and Polarization Combining

A new method to improve the brightness of diode lasers based on beam-waist splitting and polarization combining was proposed and demonstrated. The beam waist was split by a precisely cut prism into two parts and combined with a polarization beam combiner. The advantages of simple setup, high efficiency, brightness, and universality were presented. The slow axis M2 factor of a broad-area diode laser with a ridge beam width of 180 μm was reduced from 18.5 to 9.8, and a brightness of 42.4 MW cm−2 sr−1 was realized; this brightness was a 84.21% improvement of the same emitter at 8 A. The slow axis M2 factor of a commercial broad-area diode laser array combined by spectral beam combining was reduced from 9.08 to 4.78, and 80.6% improvement of brightness was realized on the same commercial broad-area diode laser array. A brightness of 195.8 MW cm−2 sr−1 was realized at 36 A by this diode laser array. This method can be applied in a highly polarized light source to improve the beam quality and brightness.

Spectral linewidth narrowing of broad-area blue diode bar in V-shape external Talbot cavity.

A 1-D linear array of 23 high-power broad-area laser diode (BALD) beams in the blue spectral region (447 nm) is combined employing a V-shape external Talbot cavity in Littrow configuration. A surface grating provides optical feedback via self-imaged diffractive coupling to the diode bar and induces all the emitters to lase at a common central wavelength. The external cavity reduces the spectral linewidth of the free-running laser diode bar from several nm to 20-50 pm (FWHM) with the power level of 11.8 W. The narrow spectrum of the external cavity stabilized laser can be tuned in the range of 3-4 nm by adjusting the tilt angle of the grating while the laser diode bar is operated in constant current mode at a temperature of 20°C.

Stable Lateral Far Field of Highly Dense Arrays of Uncoupled Narrow Stripe Ridge Waveguide 1060 nm Lasers

In order to stabilize the lateral far-field profile of a broad area laser diode at high pump currents, the design of an asymmetric InGaAs&#x002F;AlGaAs&#x002F;GaAs laser heterostructure was developed. Lasers with an aperture formed by ten optically uncoupled ridge waveguides (each 6.5 &#x03BC;m wide) were developed on its basis. To maintain the single-mode operation of each ridge waveguide without coupling between emitters, a High Dense Microstripe Array (HDMSA, the pitch is 13.5 &#x03BC;m) and a Low Dense Microstripe Array (LDMSA, the pitch is 40 &#x03BC;m) were fabricated with a coupling parameter between adjacent lateral waveguides of 2&#x00B7;10^&#x2212;5 and 3&#x00B7;10^&#x2212;19, respectively. The maximum optical output power was 5 W (HDMSA) in CW mode and 25 W (HDMSA) and 26 W (LDMSA) in pulsed mode (130ns&#x002F;1kHz). It is shown that in both CW and pulsed modes, lasers of both designs provide a stable Gaussian-like distribution in the lateral far field (LFF) with a FWHM of 8&#x2013;11 degrees for HDMSA and 6.5&#x2013;10 degrees for LDMSA. It was found that the LFF broadens with a pump current in the range of low currents and stabilizes in the range of high currents for both designs. Studies of the near field in both operating modes at any pump currents showed no array modes and the uncoupling mode is maintained for ridge waveguide arrays.

Dual-wavelength emission from a high-order Bragg gratings integrated broad-area laser diode

This paper presents a broadband distributed Bragg reflection laser diode with dual-wavelength emission. The waveguide of the laser diode is integrated with a 95-um high-order Bragg grating (HOBG) region. Thus, the longitudinal mode of the broadband laser diode can be partially filtered by the HOBGs. As the gain peak of the active region can cover nearly four modes, two modes with nearly the same gain value can be emitted simultaneously. Moreover, two wavelengths with an interval of 0.25 nm are obtained, and the centre wavelength is near 958 nm. The maximum output power of the dual-wavelength emission can reach 411 mW at an operating current of 1.16 A. A stable dual-wavelength emission can be maintained when the operating current is changed from 1.02 A to 1.16 A. In particular, the spacing between the two wavelengths barely varies. Thus, dual-wavelength emission can be used for multi-wavelength continuous tuning applications.

808 nm broad-area laser diodes designed for high efficiency at high-temperature operation

Semiconductor lasers with high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and output power are heavily investigated driven by more energy-efficient commercial applications. In this paper, an asymmetric broad area laser (A-BAL) design is studied and compared with a conventional symmetric broad area laser (S-BAL) design for 808 nm single emitter laser diodes. We present a comparative theoretical and experimental investigation by studying the thermal effects on the laser parameters. The output characteristics and efficiency loss paths for the designs were analyzed. The leakage of carriers was identified as the primary source of the PCE reduction with temperature. Suppressing this leakage by optimization of the A-BAL design, a record continuous-wave PCE of 68% at 25 °C and 60.4% at 75 °C were achieved for a single emitter laser with 10 W output power. These devices deliver high efficiency at high temperatures with reliable operation achieving 2000 h of an accelerated aging lifetime without failures.

Non-Hermitian arrangement for stable semiconductor laser arrays.

We propose and explore a physical mechanism for the stabilization of the complex spatiotemporal dynamics in arrays (bars) of broad area laser diodes taking advantage of the symmetry breaking in non-Hermitian potentials. We show that such stabilization can be achieved by specific pump and index profiles leading to a PT-symmetric coupling between nearest neighboring lasers within the semiconductor bar. A numerical analysis is performed using a complete (2 + 1)-dimensional space-temporal model, including transverse and longitudinal spatial degrees of freedom and temporal evolution of the electric field and carriers. We show regimes of temporal stabilization and light emission spatial redistribution and enhancement. We also consider a simplified (1 + 1)-dimensional model for an array of lasers holding the proposed non-Hermitian coupling with a global axisymmetric geometry. We numerically demonstrate a two-fold benefit: the control over the temporal dynamics over the EELs bar and the field concentration on the central lasers leading to a brighter output beam, facilitating a direct coupling to an optical fiber.

Spectral linewidth narrowing of two broad-area blue laser diodes (445 nm) with a common external cavity.

Two watt-level broad-area laser diodes were simultaneously locked into a common external cavity made using a surface grating in a Littrow configuration. The spectral linewidth of the combined laser beam was narrowed down from over a nanometer to 10-15 pm (FWHM), and the output power was the sum of the power of the individually locked laser diodes. The spectrum of the combined laser beam can be tuned over a range of 2-3 nm by changing the tilt angle of the grating and varying the injection currents of each laser diode.

High-power operation and lateral divergence angle reduction of broad-area laser diodes at 976 nm

Broad-area diode lasers with high output power and low lateral divergence angle are highly desired for extensive scientific and industrial applications. Here, we report on the epitaxial design for higher output power and a flared waveguide design for reduced divergence, which leads to high power operation with a low lateral divergence angle. A vertically asymmetric epitaxial structure was employed and optimized for low internal optical loss and high efficiency to realize high output power operation. Using a flared waveguide design, the lateral divergence angle was efficiently reduced by decreasing the number of high-order lateral optical modes significantly. The flared waveguide design introduces a smooth modification of the ridge width along the cavity without deteriorating laser performance. Based on the optimized epitaxial and waveguide design, we scaled the waveguide width to realize high continuous-wave power of 34.5 W at 25 °C. A low lateral divergence angle of 8° and high power conversion efficiency of 60% were achieved at the operating power level of 25 W. The life test data (30 A at 45 °C for 39 units, 0 failures in 1000 h) demonstrated reliable operation illustrating the efficient design for reduced lateral divergence angle and high operating power.

Speckle contrast evaluation of multi-emitter broad area 638-nm red laser diodes

Speckle contrast of single, dual, and triple emitter broad area laser diodes (BA-LDs) with a wavelength of 638 nm was experimentally investigated. Speckle noise was relatively small near the threshold current probably due to the longitudinal mode competition. Higher output power led to smaller speckle noise owing to the spectrum widening. A wide stripe presented an advantage in terms of speckle reduction in the single emitter LDs. It is also found that wider emitter width leads to the smaller the speckle noise. A larger number of emitters decreased speckle noise due to the beam superposition effect, even for multi-emitter LDs in which the emitters are built into one chipa.

Selective loss tailoring of broad-area diode lasers

High-power high-brightness broad-area diode lasers have poor lateral beam quality, which has limited the application range of this kind of device. To improve the lateral beam quality, a sawtooth microstructure laser was proposed and the microstructures were carefully designed according to the profiles of each lateral mode and their dependence on the self-heating induced thermal lens effect. As a result of selective mode loss adjustment, a 42% improvement in lateral beam quality was achieved under the power-maintained condition. This technology enables us to develop high-brightness direct-diode laser systems.

Non-uniform longitudinal current density induced power saturation in GaAs-based high power diode lasers

The output power of modern 975 nm GaAs-based broad area diode lasers is limited by increasing carrier and photon losses at high bias. We use experiment and one-dimensional calculations on these devices to reveal that higher current densities (and hence higher local recombination rates and higher losses) arise near the front facet due to spatial hole burning and that the non-uniformity is strongly affected by laser geometry, which is more severe for longer resonators and less severe for higher front facet reflectivity. Specifically, we use devices with a segmented p-contact to directly measure the current distribution along the resonator and compare this with laser simulation. Devices with a 6 mm resonator show 29% more current at the front than back, twice as large as the 15% current non-uniformity in devices with a 3 mm resonator. In contrast, increased front facet reflectivity (20% rather than 0.8%) is shown to almost halve the current non-uniformity from 29% to 18% in devices with a 6 mm resonator and reduces power saturation. Although the magnitude of current non-uniformity in experiment and theory is broadly consistent, in experiment, an additional divergence is seen in current flow (and hence recombination rate) near the facets, and earlier power saturation occurs. We discuss the possible saturation mechanisms that are not included in the simulation.