A wide range of laser medical treatments are based on coagulation of blood by absorption of the laser radiation. It has, therefore, always been a goal of these treatments to maximize the ratio of absorption in the blood to that in the surrounding tissue. For this purpose lasers at 577 nm are ideal since this wavelength is at the peak of the absorption in oxygenated hemoglobin. Furthermore, 577 nm has a lower absorption in melanin when compared to green wavelengths (515 − 532 nm), giving it an advantage when treating at greater penetration depth. Here we present a laser system based on frequency doubling of an 1154 nm Distributed Bragg Reflector (DBR) tapered diode laser, emitting 1.1 W of single frequency and diffraction limited yellow light at 577 nm, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of 30.5%. The frequency doubling is performed in a single pass configuration using a cascade of two bulk non-linear crystals. The system is power stabilized over 10 hours with a standard deviation of 0.13% and the relative intensity noise is measured to be 0.064 % rms.
Nowadays the interest in high power semiconductor devices is growing for applications such as telemetry, lidar system or free space communications. Indeed semiconductor devices can be an alternative to solid state lasers because they are more compact and less power consuming. These characteristics are very important for constrained and/or low power supply environment such as airplanes or satellites.
Lots of work has been done in the 800-1200 nm range for integrated and free space Master Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA) [1]-[3]. At 1.5 μm, the only commercially available MOPA is from QPC [4]: the fibred output power is about 700 mW and the optical linewidth is 500 kHz.
In this paper, we first report on the simulations we have done to determine the appropriate vertical structure and architecture for a good MOPA at 1.58 μm (section II). Then we describe the fabrication of the devices (section III). Finally we report on the optical and electrical measurements we have done for various devices (section IV).
Semiconductor light sources like light emitting diodes (LEDs) or laser diodes (LDs) are the most important light sources for space applications. LEDs are used in the control panels or lightning systems in the spacecrafts and as growth lightning systems in a deep space.
Space-borne lidar systems require laser transmitters with very good performance in terms of output power, beam quality, conversion efficiency, long term reliability and environmental compatibility. Atmospheric gas sensing additionally requires spectral purity and stability.
We present experimental results on a three-section master oscillator power amplifier at 1.57 μm to be applied in an integrated path differential absorption LIDAR system for column-averaged atmospheric CO2 measurements. The application requires high power and good beam quality together with spectral purity and modulation capacity to be used in a random modulation CW LIDAR system. The device consists of a distributed feedback laser acting as master oscillator, a bent modulator section and a tapered optical amplifier section with a tilted front facet to avoid coupled cavity effects. The modulator section acts as an absorber or amplifier when driven at zero or positive bias. Devices with different geometries and epitaxial structures were fabricated and characterized, presenting CW output powers higher than 350 mW and stable single mode emission. At the frequency required by the application (12.5 MHz) a high optical modulation amplitude and extinction ratio were achieved.
We propose an integrated path differential absorption lidar system based on all-semiconductor laser sources and single photon counting detection for column-averaged measurements of atmospheric CO2. The Random Modulated Continuous Wave (RM-CW) approach has been selected as the best suited to semiconductor lasers. In a RM-CW lidar, a pseudo random sequence is sent to the atmosphere and the received signal reflected from the target is correlated with the original sequence in order to retrieve the path length. The transmitter design is based on two monolithic Master Oscillator Power Amplifiers (MOPAs), providing the on-line and off-line wavelengths close to the selected absorption line around 1.57 µm. Each MOPA consists of a frequency stabilized distributed feedback master oscillator, a bent modulator section, and a tapered amplifier. This design allows the emitters to deliver high power and high quality laser beams with good spectral properties. An output power above 400 mW with a SMSR higher than 45 dB and modulation capability have been demonstrated. On the side of the receiver, our theoretical and experimental results indicate that the major noise contribution comes from the ambient light and detector noise. For this reason narrow band optical filters are required in the envisioned space-borne applications. In this contribution, we present the latest progresses regarding the design, modeling and characterization of the transmitter, the receiver, the frequency stabilization unit and the complete system.
Fully integrated semiconductor master-oscillator power-amplifiers (MOPA) with a tapered power amplifier are attractive sources for applications requiring high brightness. The geometrical design of the tapered amplifier is crucial to achieve the required power and beam quality. In this work we investigate by numerical simulation the role of the geometrical design in the beam quality and in the maximum achievable power. The simulations were performed with a Quasi-3D model which solves the complete steady-state semiconductor and thermal equations combined with a beam propagation method. The results indicate that large devices with wide taper angles produce higher power with better beam quality than smaller area designs, but at expenses of a higher injection current and lower conversion efficiency.
Integrated master-oscillator power amplifiers driven under steady-state injection conditions are known to show a complex dynamics resulting in a variety of emission regimes. We present experimental results on the emission characteristics of a 1.5 μm distributed feedback tapered master-oscillator power-amplifier in a wide range of steady-state injection conditions, showing different dynamic behaviors. The study combines the optical and radio-frequency spectra recorded under different levels of injected current into the master oscillator and the power amplifier sections. Under low injection current of the master oscillator the correlation between the optical and radio-frequency spectral maps allows to identify operation regimes in which the device emission arises from either the master oscillator mode or from the compound cavity modes allowed by the residual reflectance of the amplifier front facet. The quasi-periodic occurrence of these emission regimes as a function of the amplifier current is interpreted in terms of a thermally tuned competition between the modes of the master oscillator and the compound cavity modes. Under high injection current of the master oscillator, two different regimes alternate quasi-periodically as a function of the injected current in the power amplifier: a stable regime with a single mode emission at the master oscillator frequency, and an unstable and complex self-pulsating regime showing strong peaks in the radio-frequency spectra as well as multiple frequencies in the optical spectra.
We study experimentally the dynamic properties of a fully integrated high power master-oscillator power-amplifier emitting at 1.5 μm under continuous wave and gain-switching conditions. High peak power (2.7 W) optical pulses with short duration (~ 110 ps) have been generated by gain switching the master-oscillator. We show the existence of working points at very close driving conditions with stable or unstable regimes caused by the compound cavity effects. The optical and radio-frequency spectra of stable and unstable operating points are analyzed.
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