Optical Damage Power Research Articles

High power (>10 W from 100 [micro sign]m aperture) high reliability 808 nm InAlGaAs broad area laser diodes

Single stripe InAlGaAs laser diodes with non-absorbing mirrors (NAMs) operating at 808 nm have been fabricated and tested. The inclusion of the NAM more than doubles the catastrophic optical damage power and greatly improves the reliability of the laser diode. A maximum CW power of over 10 W has been achieved from an 808 nm broad area laser with a 100 μm stripe width.

Effect of thermal resistivity on the catastrophic optical damage power density of AlGaInP laser diodes

We show that the low catastrophic optical damage power density observed for AlGaInP laser diodes (LDs) (1/2 to 1/2.9 that of AlGaAs LDs) is mainly attributable to the high thermal resistivities of the materials (5.5 times higher than for AlGaAs LDs) by using a thermal runaway model calculation.

High-power single-mode AlGaAs lasers with bent-waveguide nonabsorbing etched mirrors

A nonabsorbing etched mirror structure for AlGaAs single-quantum-well graded-refractive-index separate-confinement heterostructure ridge lasers is analyzed with respect to mirror coupling coefficient, threshold current penalty, and far-field pattern. Measurements of the mirror temperature showed a reduction from 50 to 20 K at 30 mW optical power depending on the degree of overlap of the optical intensity with the absorbing bent-waveguide profile. Pulsed catastrophic optical damage power levels up to 400 mW and a thermally saturated cw power of 165 mW with single-mode operation up to 80 mW have been achieved. Lifetime measurements at 40 mW constant optical power indicated degradation rates ≤10−5/h comparable to AlGaAs lasers with cleaved and coated mirrors.