Experimental and analytic studies of coupled multiple stripe diode lasers

Abstract

Experimental and analytic studies of coupled multiple stripe (CMS) phase-locked, room-temperature diode lasers are reported. Such devices generate high-power well-collimated beams, which potentially may be electronically scanned in the manner of phased array radar. For the tested devices with ten conducting 3 μm stripe contacts on centers separated by <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">D</tex> and coupled by curved waveguide sections, data from four stripe geometries with <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">D</tex> ranging from 10 μm to 27.4 μm are compared and overall optimal characteristics occur for <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">D = 10 \mu</tex> m. In that case, threshold current densities are comparable to solid area lasers, differential quantum efficiency is approximately 60 percent, and maximum observed pulsed power per facet is on the order of 1 W.