| The development of high-coherent power and highly stable 980 nm laser diodes has been investigated rapid1y because of their need in a wide range of applications such as components for blue-emitting light sources via second harmonic generation, and pumps for Er-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). The diode source needs to exhibit a stable, single-mode beam with a spot size nearly matching that of the fiber or waveguide in order to be efficiently coupled. Conventional ridge-guide devices are limited by thermally-induced kinks to stable, single-mode operation up to around 700 mW CW. Furthermore, such devices have small aperture widths: 3--3.5 mum; which limits their reliability (due to mirror-facet degradation and/or bulk degradation) to around 500 mW, even when their facets are fully passivated.;My research aimed at finding ways to stabilize the lateral spatial mode of diode lasers to high output powers by using the concept of laterally-antiguided, antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW). Devices of 8.5 mum-wide cores ARROW and low transverse optical confinement factor (1%) are found to stay in a single mode to at least 40 times threshold, which in turn allows me to project stable, single-mode operation to 1.2 W output power. Experimental results from 10 mum-core lasers, with 1.5% of transverse optical confinement, include stable single-mode operation to 300 mW at 10 times thresholds, in good agreement with the presented study. In addition, study of Simplified (s)-ARROW lasers demonstrates possible 1.4 W output power for 10 mum-core devices. |
