High-brightness tapered semiconductor laser oscillators and amplifiers with low-modal gain epilayer-structures

Author

Mikulla, M. ; Chazan, P. ; Schmitt, A. ; Morgott, S. ; Wetzel, A. ; Walther, M. ; Kiefer, R. ; Pletschen, W. ; Braunstein, J. ; Weiman, G.

Author_Institution

Fraunhofer-Inst. fur Angewandte Festkorperphys., Freiburg, Germany

Volume

10

Issue

5

fYear

1998

fDate

5/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

654

Lastpage

656

Abstract

The dependence of the beam quality of tapered laser oscillators and amplifiers on the modal optical gain is demonstrated experimentally and theoretically for the first time. Tapered devices with high- (HMG) and low-modal gain (LMG) structures are compared in terms of output power and beam quality. At high-output powers the beam quality of LMG devices is by a factor of ten better than the beam quality of high-modal gain devices. The beam quality remains nearly unchanged up to power levels of more than 2-W continuous-wave (CW) where a beam quality factor of M/sup 2/<3 is achieved for both, tapered laser oscillators and tapered amplifiers.

Keywords

Q-factor; brightness; laser beams; laser modes; laser theory; semiconductor device models; semiconductor lasers; 2 W; CW lasers; beam quality; beam quality factor; high-brightness tapered semiconductor laser amplifiers; high-brightness tapered semiconductor laser oscillators; high-modal gain devices; high-output powers; low-modal gain epilayer-structures; low-modal gain structures; modal optical gain; output power; power levels; tapered laser amplifiers; tapered laser oscillators; Laser beams; Laser theory; Optical amplifiers; Oscillators; Power amplifiers; Power generation; Q factor; Semiconductor lasers; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Stimulated emission;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/68.669231

Filename

669231