Spatial coherence and thermal lensing in broad-area semiconductor lasers

Author

Callaghan, James R O ; Houlihan, John ; Voignier, Vincent ; Wu, Guan H. ; O´Neill, Eamonn ; McInerney, John G. ; Huyet, Guillaume

Author_Institution

Dept. of Optoelectronics, Univ. of Ulm, Germany

Volume

40

Issue

1

fYear

2004

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

9

Abstract

Injection profiled broad-area edge-emitting semiconductor lasers demonstrate single transverse mode operation and near-diffraction-limited beam output when driven by pulsed pump current. Thermal effects arising from CW operation induce filamentary dynamics, thus degrading the beam. Transition from the stable nonthermal to the unstable CW regime is analyzed experimentally and numerically, and techniques to improve beam quality in the thermal regime, based on feedback or thermal profiling, are proposed.

Keywords

gradient index optics; laser beams; laser feedback; laser stability; light coherence; quantum well lasers; thermal lensing; CW operation; Maxwell-Bloch equations model; beam quality; broad-area semiconductor lasers; edge-emitting lasers; epitaxial design; external heating; feedback profiling; filamentary dynamics; gain tailoring; graded-index separate-confinement heterostructure; injection profiled lasers; near-diffraction-limited beam output; pulsed pump current; single transverse mode operation; spatial coherence; thermal lensing; thermal profiling; Laser beams; Laser excitation; Laser modes; Laser transitions; Optical pulses; Pump lasers; Semiconductor lasers; Spatial coherence; Thermal degradation; Thermal lensing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JQE.2003.820832

Filename

1262081