High-brightness diode-laser-pumped semiconductor heterostructure lasers

Abstract

A novel, generic design for diode-pumped lasers and amplifiers utilizing semiconductor heterostructures has been implemented in the InGaAs/GaAs/AlGaAs material system. The spatial and spectral characteristics of these heterostructures are optimized to provide low output beam divergence, low aspect ratio, high efficiency, and low threshold. A pump-power-limited cw output of 0.58 W was obtained with diode-array pumping, and a peak power of 33 W per facet was achieved with pulsed Ti:Al2 O3 laser pumping. A near-diffraction-limited output beam with a divergence of 14° by 3.4° has been obtained.