High differential efficiency tilted wave laser

Abstract

We report results on 1060 nm GaAs/GaAlAs-based Tilted Wave Lasers employing multiple InGaAs quantum wells without strain compensation as active medium. The devices are edge-emitting lasers composed of a thin active waveguide optically coupled to a thick passive waveguide responsible to form a tilted optical wave that results in two narrow lobes in the vertical far field profile of the emitted laser light. Devices with different thicknesses of the passive waveguide have been fabricated. The laser with the 26 µm-thick waveguide has low internal losses of 1.4 cm -1 , reaches for the as cleaved facets device with 1.5 mm-long cavity the differential efficiency of 81%. The 50 µm broad area device demonstrates the maximum wall-plug efficiency in the continuous wave (cw) mode ~50% and the linear output power up to and above 4 W. The laser light is concentrated in two narrow vertical beams, each 2 o full width at half maximum in a good agreement with theory.