Indium gallium arsenide lasers set new power and reliability levels at 915 nm

Indium gallium arsenide lasers set new power and reliability levels at 915 nm

At Opto Power Corp. (Tucson, AZ) researchers have obtained a maximum continuous-wave (CW) output power of 6 W from two uncoated 100-?m-wide emitting apertures of a broad-area diode laser. Beyond 6 W, the device failed due to catastrophic optic mirror damage (COMD), which, the researchers assert, is determined more by the indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) quantum-well material than the aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) waveguide and cladding material. The COMD power density was estimated at 11 MW/cm2. The researchers claim this level of power and reliability from 915-nm InGaAs/AlGaAs diode lasers exceeds previous room-temperature performance levels with similar devices.

During a 2300-hour reliability test at 30!C of seven devices emitting more than 1 W of continuous output from 100-?m-diameter fibers, the researchers observed an average device degradation of 0.17% per thousand hours, for a projected device lifetime (culminating at 20% degradation) of 1.2 105 hours. Such devices could serve as single-mode laser pum¥sources.