Open AccessMerged beam laser design for reduction of gain-saturation and two-photon absorption in high power single mode semiconductor lasers
Author(s) -
Mykhaylo Lysevych,
Hark Hoe Tan,
F. Karouta,
Lan Fu,
Chennupati Jagadish
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.21.008276
Subject(s) - laser , optics , materials science , semiconductor laser theory , optoelectronics , injection seeder , semiconductor optical gain , optical amplifier , waveguide , single mode optical fiber , amplifier , semiconductor , physics , cmos
In this paper we report a method to overcome the limitations of gain-saturation and two-photon absorption faced by developers of high power single mode InP-based lasers and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) including those based on wide-waveguide or slab-coupled optical waveguide laser (SCOWL) technology. The method is based on Y-coupling design of the laser cavity. The reduction in gain-saturation and two-photon absorption in the merged beam laser structures (MBL) are obtained by reducing the intensity of electromagnetic field in the laser cavity. Standard ridge-waveguide lasers and MBLs were fabricated, tested and compared. Despite a slightly higher threshold current, the reduced gain-saturation in MBLs results in higher output power. The MBLs also produced a single spatial mode, as well as a strongly dominating single spectral mode which is the inherent feature of MBL-type cavity.