Grating stabilized 0.5 W, 980 nm pump modules

Highly efficient, 0.5 W, single-mode 980 nm pump modules for erbium-doped optical amplifiers have been developed. The laser diode has been optimized to eliminate the optical kink associated with spatial mode instability thereby allowing a significant increase of the chip power. The optimized chip has a lower series and thermal resistance resulting in a more efficient operation with high reliability. The chip has been incorporated into a newly developed, highly efficient module platform. This module utilizes the industry standard 14-pin ´butterfly´ format, and has optimized fiber coupling and thermal design. The combination of an excellent chip and an optimized module design has lead to single mode coupled powers in excess of 0.5 W for telecommunication applications that require high reliability.