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.