Beam shaping of broad-area diode lasers: principles and benefits

Albrecht von Pfeil; Thilo von Freyhold

doi:10.1117/12.462645

16 April 2002 Beam shaping of broad-area diode lasers: principles and benefits

Albrecht von Pfeil, Thilo von Freyhold

Proceedings Volume 4648, Test and Measurement Applications of Optoelectronic Devices; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.462645
Event: Symposium on Integrated Optoelectronic Devices, 2002, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

High brightness is a major issue in most high-power diode laser applications. The brightness of a laser diode primarily depends on the optical power and the product of beam-quality factors in x- and y-direction, i.e. M²_xx M²_y. Even though there are many broad-area laser diodes which show an impressive brightness, all emitters lack a symmetric beam quality. In the direction perpendicular to the laser junction, the fast axis, the beam quality is perfect, showing an M²_y-value of 1. Parallel to the junction, in the slow axis, the beam quality is much worse, usually having an M²_x-value of 20- 100. For most pumping applications or fiber coupling, symmetrical beam parameters are required. Therefore usually the accessible brightness of the diodes is determined by the beam quality of the slow axis, wasting the perfect beam quality of the fast axis. We present a novel micro-optical beam shaping technique to symmetrize the beam quality of a broad area single emitter. This technique sacrifices the perfect beam quality in the fast axis while increasing the beam quality in the slow axis yielding (formula available in paper) This symmetrized beam can be coupled into a much smaller fiber/pump area than the direct beam from the laser diode. We report on some pumping applications using our beam- shaped, high-power diode-lasers as well as the benefits achieved by the symmetrized beam.

Citation Download Citation

Albrecht von Pfeil and Thilo von Freyhold "Beam shaping of broad-area diode lasers: principles and benefits", Proc. SPIE 4648, Test and Measurement Applications of Optoelectronic Devices, (16 April 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.462645

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