Passive cavity laser and tilted wave laser for Bessel-like beam coherently coupled bars and stacks

Abstract

Ultralarge output apertures of semiconductor gain chips facilitate novel applications that require efficient feedback of the reflected laser light. Thick (10-30 μm) and ultrabroad (>1000 μm) waveguides are suitable for coherent coupling through both near-field of the neighboring stripes in a laser bar and by applying external cavities. As a result direct laser diodes may become suitable as high-power high-brightness coherent light sources. Passive cavity laser is based on the idea of placing the active media outside of the main waveguide, for example in the cladding layers attached to the waveguide, or, as in the case of the Tilted Wave Laser (TWL) in a thin waveguide coupled to the neighboring thick waveguide wherein most of the field intensity is localized in the broad waveguide. Multimode or a single vertical mode lasing is possible depending on the coupling efficiency. We demonstrate that 1060 nm GaAs/GaAlAs–based Tilted Wave Lasers (TWL) show wall-plug efficiency up to ~55% with the power concentrated in the two symmetric vertical beams having a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 2 degrees each. Bars with pitch sizes in the range of 25–400 μm are studied and coherent operation of the bars is manifested with the lateral far field lobes as narrow as 0.1° FWHM. As the near field of such lasers in the vertical direction represents a strongly modulated highly periodic pattern of intensity maxima such lasers or laser arrays generate Bessel-type beams. These beams are focusable similar to the case of Gaussian beams. However, opposite to the Gaussian beams, such beams are self-healing and quasi non-divergent. Previously Bessel beams were generated using Gaussian beams in combination with an axicon lens or a Fresnel biprism. A new approach does not involve such complexity and a novel generation of laser diodes evolves.