1-W antimonide-based vertical external cavity surface emitting laser operating at 2-µm

Abstract

We report a high-power optically pumped semiconductor vertical external cavity surface emitting laser operating at 2-mum wavelength. The gain material consisted of 15 GaInSb quantum-wells placed within a three-lambda GaSb cavity and grown on the top of an 18-pairs AlAsSb/GaSb Bragg reflector. For thermal management we have used a transparent diamond heat spreader bonded on the top of the structure. When cooled down to 5 degrees C, the laser emitted up to 1 W of optical power in a nearly diffraction-limited Gaussian beam demonstrating the high potential of antimonide material for VECSEL fabrication.

Semiconductor Disk Lasers: Recent Advances in Generation of Yellow-Orange and Mid-IR Radiation

“…This spectral range can be accessed using GaSb material system. GaSb-based SDLs with high-power (>1 W) and widely tunable (up to ∼160 nm) operations have been reported by several groups [19,37,65,100,101]. In addition to continuous wave lasers also ultrashort pulse SDLs in this wavelength range are of interest, as they could be used as seed sources for mid-IR supercontinuum sources [102] or for pumping of mid-IR optical parametric oscillators.…”

“…The benefits brought by GaSb-based material system to SDLs are the high index contrast (Δn ∼ 0.6) of latticematched AlAs 0.08 Sb 0.92 /GaSb DBR layers, which enables to achieve high reflectivity in exceptionally broad band (∼300 nm [100]) with a relatively small number of layer pairs. This makes GaSb SDLs very attractive for spectroscopic application where broad tunability of the laser is needed.…”

Progress in Antimonide Based III-V Compound Semiconductors and Devices

“…High-power optically pumped semiconductor vertical external cavity surface emitting laser (VECSEL) operating at 2-μm wavelength was reported by A. Härkönen et al [28]. The device material was grown on GaSb substrate by MBE and consisted of 15 Ga 0.78 In 0.22 Sb quantum-wells placed within a three-lambda GaSb cavity and grown on the top of an 18-pairs AlAsSb/GaSb Bragg reflector.…”

GaSb-based heterostructures for high power and pulsed laser operation

“…OP-VECSELs, also known as opticallypumped semiconductor disk lasers (OP-SDLs), provide a good quality, nearly diffraction limited beam, and output power much higher than a single-mode laser diodes (LDs). Moreover, the external cavity configuration enables the use of intra-cavity filters for wavelength tuning [5,6]. When compared with LDs, OPVECSELs are more advantageous also in terms of fabrication complexity; there is no need for doping associated with electrical injection [7].…”

“…The GaSb material system enables the use of lattice matched distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) for both VECSELs and SESAMs. DBRs comprised of layers with a high refractive index contrast, namely AlAs 0.08 Sb 0.92 and GaSb, have an exceptionally broad stop-band (∼300 nm [5]) and require a relatively small number of layer pairs to achieve high reflectance. The broad stop-band makes GaSbbased vertical-cavity lasers highly interesting for spectroscopic applications requiring a wide tuning range.…”