High-performance mid-infrared GaSb laser diodes for defence and sensing applications

Abstract

Mid-infrared spectral region (2-4 µm) is gaining significant attention recently due to the presence of numerous enabling applications in the field of gas sensing, medical, environmental and defense applications. Major requirement for these applications is the availability of laser sources in the atmospheric transmission window free of water vapor absorption, such as the 2-2.3 µm spectral window. Type-I GaSb-based laser diodes are ideal candidates for these applications being compact, electrically pumped, power efficient and able to operate at room temperature in continuous-wave. Moreover, due to the nature of type-I transition these devices have characteristic low operation voltage, typically below 1 V, resulting in low power consumption, and high-temperature of operation.In this work, we present recent progress of 2.1 µm wavelength single-spatial mode GaSb type-I laser diode development at Brolis Semiconductors. Experimental device structures were grown by solid-source multi-wafer MBE, consisting of an active region with 2 compressively strained (~1.3 %) GaInAsSb quantum wells. Epi-wafers were processed into a ridge-waveguide devices and mounted on Cu or CuW heatsink. Presented devices feature state-of-the art performance in CW mode with > 1.2 W and 30 % WPE for single emitter device as well as 9 W and 28 % WPE for a laser diode bar.

Mid-infrared laser diodes epitaxially grown on on-axis (001) silicon

“…It includes transparence windows of the atmosphere as well as absorption lines for many molecules [1] that are important for medical and industrial applications, as well as for environmental monitoring. GaSb-based laser diodes (LDs) have progressively emerged as the unique semiconductor laser technology able to fully cover this wavelength range [2,3], and they have allowed high-sensitivity optical gas sensing [4][5][6]. Still, up to now these sensors are rather bulky and expensive, largely due to the fact that they rely on discrete devices.…”

Watt-level antimony laser diodes emitting at 2 μm

“…In figure 1, it is obvious to find that there is a powerful absorption around 2 μm, which is one of the bright applications in water 1 . Also, high power laser diodes around 2 μm have been widely used in no matter civil and for army use due to their high power, high efficiency, and high transparency atmospheric window, which are the reasons why they have shown a huge potential for the applications in gas monitoring system 2 , Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) 3 , protein analysis 4 and other promising fields. For antimony laser diodes, it is ideal used in the mid-infrared range due to tiny size, long working time and low cost, which makes how to increase the power of antimony laser diodes become a critical issue.…”

High power laser diode emitted at 2μm

“…High power laser diodes emitting at around 2μm owing to high transparency atmospheric window have wide range of applications in civil and military, such as gas monitoring, free-space telecommunication, medical diagnostics and treatment, infrared guidance, pump sources for solid state laser and so on 1 . Over the last tens of years, the GaSb-based materials system have been proved to fabricate quantum well semiconductor lasers to cover this specific range as the ideal candidate.…”