1550nm broad-area PLDs with outstanding electro-optical performance

1550 nm high-power pulsed laser diodes (PLDs) operating in the eye-safe spectral window are generating significant interest for applications including range finding, medical instruments, and LIDAR systems. For compact applications, such as military LIDAR, fiber lasers are not a suitable solution; therefore, stand-alone laser chips assembled on Transistor Outline (TO) package offer substantial advantages. AlInGaAs/InP-based material systems are well-known semiconductors used in the design and fabrication of PLDs where high output power is essential, particularly in range-finding applications. 

In this work, we have designed and demonstrated, for the first time, a very high-power 1550 nm pulsed Fabry-Perot (FP) laser with a single-junction diode. A robust design combining high-efficiency carrier injection into AlInGaAs-based quantum wells and an efficient optical waveguide has led to outstanding electro-optical performance. Characterization results have demonstrated an output power of more than 19 W peak-to-peak, measured on a 7 mil (180 µm) stripe width and a resonator length of 1240 nm and under pulsed current of 46 A. Furthermore, at high driving currents, the output power remains higher than 25 W for carrier injection of 80 A, without any significant roll-over mechanism. The divergence of optical beam, far-field (FF), has also been measured to be 25° and 12° for the fast and slow axis, respectively. Life tests carried out on such devices under high thermal stress of 85°C and operating conditions of 46 A, 150 ns, and 3 kHz for signal frequency, demonstrated very high robustness with no optical output power degradation over 1000 hours of operation time. To the best of our knowledge, these results represent the highest performance of PLDs currently available on the market.