Pumping solid state lasers in LCTs requires the application of highly reliable, low-noise semiconductor lasers. Two design variants of pump lasers have been developed and tested. The first design consists of broad area laser arrays, spectrally stabilized by an external Bragg grating. Those lasers exhibit decent reliability and thus they are utilized in various space missions. The drawback of that design is due to hardly controllable intensity noise at certain operating conditions induced by optical feedback. To overcome this drawback, DBR RW arrays with monolithically integrated Bragg grating have been optimized aimed at low noise performance and high reliability over an extended operating time. Life test results indicate that the reliability goal can be achieved by careful preselection of the devices and eventually by increasing the number of active emitters.
Detailed experimental and theoretical investigations of the dynamics of internally wavelength stabilized broad area distributed Bragg reflector InGaAs single quantum well (SQW) lasers with emission wavelengths of about 905 nm are presented. For high peak current, small pulse width, high repetition rate, and high power efficiency new electrical pulse drivers with final stages based on GaN transistors are developed. Nearly rectangular current pulses with widths between 4 ns and 20 ns and amplitudes up to 150 A are generated. Pulse powers of 32 W with optical pulse widths between 2 ns and 10 ns are achieved. The temporal evolution of the lateral near field profiles and optical spectra is investigated with a streak camera. The lasers turn on at different lateral positions at different times, depending on the amplitudes of the current pulses and varying from device to device. Small changes in the index and gain profiles can favor the laser turn on of different lateral modes. After a few nanoseconds down to hundreds of picoseconds, depending on the injection current, the lasers reach a quasi-stationary regime. Temporally and spatially resolved spectral measurements at high current pulse excitation show a strong variation of the intensity and spectral behavior of different lateral modes at different times during the optical pulse. The experiments are compared with simulation results of the spatio-temporal behavior using a model based on paraxial wave equation for the optical field coupled to a time-dependent diffusion equation for the excess carriers. The simulation results show, as in the experiment, strong intensity fluctuations.
In this work, we present measurements of efficiency-optimized 940 nm diode laser bars with long resonators that are
constructed with robustly passivated output facets at the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut (FBH). The measurements were
performed at room temperature on a test bench developed at HiLASE Centre, as a function of operating condition. The
single-diode bars generated < 1.0 kW when tested with 1 ms pulses at 1-10Hz operating frequency, corresponding to < 1
J per pulse. The maximum electrical-to-optical efficiency was < 60 %, with operating efficiency at 1 kW of < 50%,
limited by the ~ 200 μΩ resistance of the bar packaging. In addition, slow axis divergence at 1 kW was below 6° FWHM
and spectral width at 1 kW was below 7 nm FWHM, as needed for pumping Yb-doped solid state amplifier crystals.
KEYWORDS: Near field optics, Pulsed laser operation, Waveguides, Semiconductor lasers, Switching, Fiber lasers, High power lasers, Picosecond phenomena, Near field, Fiber Bragg gratings
In this paper we present detailed experimental results of the impact of the amplitude and the widths of current pulses injected into a gain-switched distributed feedback (DFB) laser emitting at a wavelength of 1064 nm. The laser with a InGaAs triple quantum well active region has a 3 μm wide ridge waveguide (RW) and a cavity length of 1.5 mm. Gainswitching is achieved by injecting current pulses with a width of 50 ns, a repetition frequency of 200 kHz and a very high amplitude up to 40 times the threshold current (2.5 A). Time resolved investigations show, that depending on the amplitude and the duration of the current pulses, the optical power exhibits different types of oscillatory behavior during the pulses, accompanied by changes in the lateral near field intensity profiles and optical spectra. Three different types of instabilities can be distinguished: Mode beating with frequencies between 25 GHz and 30 GHz, switching between different lateral modes and self-sustained oscillations with a frequency of about 4 GHz. Our results are relevant for the utilization of gain-switched DFB-RW lasers as seed lasers for fiber laser systems and in other applications, which require high optical power.
Compared to diode lasers emitting in the near infrared, the development of high power diode lasers in the red spectral range is more challenging due to the applicable compound semiconductors, the limited stability of the laser facets, and the small barrier heights for electrons and holes. For CW applications, their mounting requires excellent heat removal or expansion matched submounts. For QCW operation with small duty cycles and about 2 W per 100 μm stripe width emitter, like for the pumping of Q-switched alexandrite (Cr3+:BeAl2O4) lasers at 654 nm, a compromise is the application of aluminum nitride as heat sink. The presented broad area (BA) lasers are based on a GaInP single quantum well embedded in AlGaInP waveguide layers. The structure provides a vertical far field angle of 31° (FWHM). The material data can be compiled as follows: transparency current density jT = 220 A/cm2, internal efficiency ƞi = 0.83, internal losses αi = 1.0 cm-1. BA lasers with a stripe width of 100 μm and a length of 1.5 mm were fabricated, facet coated including a passivation procedure, and mounted on AlN submounts. In QCW operation (100 μs, 35 Hz) at 15°C, the devices had threshold currents of about 600 mA, slope efficiencies up to 1.3 W/A and conversion efficiencies of 0.36. A maximal output of 6.3 W was measured. At lower temperatures of -10°C the maximal peak power was determined to 7.6 W, i.e. a facet load of 76 mW/μm. The devices showed reliable operation over 1,000 h at a peak power of 2.7 W.
Special applications require low noise wavelength stabilized diode lasers for pumping of solid state lasers. We report on intensity noise in the frequency range of kHz to MHz due to bi-stable mode switching between external cavity modes in laser diodes with volume Bragg grating as external reflector. Two regimes of bi-stability are identified which are attributed to switching between longitudinal or lateral resonator modes. The origin of noise is explained by thermal bi-stability which can be suppressed by proper design of the external resonator. Low noise operation of single mode ridge waveguide lasers is demonstrated having the potential of scaling up the pump power by using ridge waveguide arrays.
High power broad area diode lasers provide the optical energy for all high performance solid state and fiber laser
systems. The maximum achievable power density from such systems is limited at source by the performance of the diode
lasers. A crucial metric is the reliable continuous wave optical output power from a single broad area laser diode,
typically for stripe widths in the 90-100 μm range, which is especially important for users relying on fibered multi-mode
pumps. We present the results of a study investigating the reliable power limits of such 980nm sources. We find that
96μm stripe single emitters lasers at 20°C operate under continuous wave power of 20W per emitter for over 4000 hours
(to date) without failure, with 60μm stripe devices operating reliably at 10W per stripe. Maximum power testing under
10Hz, 200μs QCW drive conditions shows that 96μm stripes reach 30W and 60μm stripes 21W per emitter, significantly above the reliable operation point. Results are also presented on step-stress-studies, where the current is step-wise increased until failure is observed, in order to clarify the remaining reliability limits. Finally, we detail the barriers to increased peak power and discuss how these can be overcome.
In this paper, results for 650 nm high-power broad area lasers and bars will be presented. The optimized layer structure consists of GaInP quantum wells embedded in AlGaInP waveguide layers. The n-cladding layer consists of AlInP, the p-cladding layer of AlGaAs. The vertical far field of this structure has a width below 32° (FWHM). Devices were fabricated and mounted p-side down on CuW heat spreader using AuSn solder. Broad area lasers reach a maximum output power of 0.94 W at 15°C limited only by thermal rollover. Up to now reliable operation at 500 mW over 6300 h was achieved. The spectral width of the emission is below 1 nm (FWHM). Bars consisting of 19 emitters with 30 μm x 750 μm reached a maximum output power of 9.6 W and a wall-plug efficiency of 30%. Reliable operation from a 5 mm bar at 5 W and 15°C over 1500 h was shown.
Diode lasers with a high very conversion efficiency can be obtained when carefully taken into account several partly opposed requirements for the design of the layer structure. Results are given for 940nm laser structures based on the well established InGaAs/AlGaAs material with a relatively low vertical divergence of about 45° including 95% of optical power. Laser bars were processed and mounted on passively cooled heat sinks. 73% conversion efficiency was achieved at 70W output power. 150μm stripe lasers with only 1500μm resonator length mounted on usual C-mounts have a thermal rollover of about 18W, which is a record high value for a resonator length below 2mm. Reliability tests show an excellent stability at 75W in CW and 95W in long pulse operation mode over about 10000h test time.
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