Basic Aspects of High-Power Semiconductor Laser Simulation

Abstract

Abstract-The aim of this paper is to review some of the models and solution techniques used in the simulation of high-power semiconductor lasers and to address open questions. We discuss some of the peculiarities in the description of the optical field of wide-aperture lasers. As an example, the role of the substrate as a competing waveguide in GaAs-based lasers is studied. The governing equations for the investigation of modal instabilities and filamentation effects are presented and the impact of the thermal-lensing effect on the spatiotemporal behavior of the optical field is demonstrated. We reveal the factors that limit the output power at very high injecton currents based on a numerical solution of the thermodynamic based drift-diffusion equations and elucidate the role of longitudinal spatial holeburning.

Effective Numerical Algorithm for Simulations of Beam Stabilization in Broad Area Semiconductor Lasers and Amplifiers

“…As it was mentioned before, an optical field in typical conventional high power BAS lasers is composed of multiple longitudinal and lateral optical modes, an emission is irregular, it has broad and irregular optical and lateral (angular) spectra [29]. A simulated example of such a beam is given in Fig.…”

“…Several versions of the resulting dynamical (2+1)-dimensional Traveling-Wave (TW) model were simulated and analyzed by different authors in Refs. [2,9,15,18,29].…”

29.5W continuous wave output from 100um wide laser diode

“…Narrow-stripe InP lasers showed around 25% improvement of rollover power using flared designs attributed to reduction of LSHB effect [9]. There have been theoretical studies [10] showing the effect of LSHB on the output power for GaAsbased lasers but no experimental demonstration has been presented to show power improvement by overcoming the issue. 2PA was proposed recently as a power limitation mechanism for GaAs broad-area lasers [6].…”

On the temperature delocalization of carriers in GaAs/AlGaAs/InGaAs quantum-well heterostructures

“…The problem of raising the power of semiconductor lasers still remains topical, which is confirmed by the numerous publications devoted to this issue [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The modern level of practical applications of semicon ductor lasers requires that, to raise their output power, it is necessary to gain an in depth understanding of the physical processes occurring in the quantum well active regions of separate confinement double hetero structures (SC DHS) with an extended waveguide at high working temperatures and pump currents.…”