We demonstrate our latest work towards a red-emitting semiconductor membrane external-cavity surface-emitting laser (MECSEL) for applications in OCT. This light source technology employs both a near-diffraction limited beam profile (M2 ≥ 1.05) and a broad tuning range at tailorable emission wavelength. Due to their potential for mass production, combined with the usage of broadly available CMOS-sensors as detector units, OCT imaging device costs can be reduced to a significant amount, while delivering state-of-the-art image quality.
We report on the performance of MECSELs based on a non-resonant gain structure in respect with the operating lasing emission wavelength at 800 nm. Preliminary observations reveal an output power of 1.1 Watt and a 20 nm tuning range.
Membrane external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (MECSELs) are vertically emitting semiconductor lasers that combine all the benefits of VECSELs (vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers) with the new degree of freedom in creating gain structures without monolithically integrated distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). The absence of the DBR and the substrate, and the use of a very thin gain membrane (typically some hundreds of nanometers), which can be sandwiched between two transparent heat spreaders, represents the best solution for heat removal. The membrane configuration also allows the option of double side pumping, which in turn makes it possible to utilize an extensive amount of quantum well (QW) groups as well as multiple kinds of QWs in a periodic laser gain structure. Here we report on design strategy and results of different kinds of approaches on broadband, relatively high power MECSEL gain structures. Especially efficient pump absorption, sufficient gain on several different wavelengths and carrier mobility during laser operation, are discussed. We also present the characteristics of the laser systems created. Results show ∼ 83 nm (∼ 25 THz) tuning range with more than 100 mW of power at all wavelengths at room temperature operation. Strategies for further development are discussed as well.
Thermal simulations based on the finite-element method provide an estimation of what the heat management in membrane external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (MECSELs) is capable of: When considering diamond and SiC heat spreaders, double-side cooling (DSC) leads to gain membrane temperatures that are about a factor two lower than with single-side cooling (SSC). For the thermally worse conductive sapphire, the temperature benefit from DSC can be up to four times lower than with SSC. Diamonds as heat spreaders are recommended over SiC if the power for pumping the gain membrane is three times larger, for instance at 30W at a pump beam diameter of 180 μm. Sapphire can be favored over SiC if the pump power is about five times lower, for instance at 2W. Due to the limited lateral heat flow activity of sapphire, a smaller pump beam diameter of 90 μm is suggested. A super-Gaussian pump beam can be used instead of a Gaussian pump beam to lower the gain membrane maximum temperature by a factor of three. Double-side pumping becomes significantly more important as soon as the gain membrane gets thicker than 1 μm.
We report on the latest developments of very broadband gain MECSELs operating in the 9XX to 10XX nm spectral range. Preliminary results show room temperature operation with barrier pumping of the gain structure.
A MECSEL emitting around 825nm is reported. With a tuning range from 807nm to 840 nm, the MECSEL extends the coverage of high beam quality semiconductor based lasers in the short 8XXnm region and opens new perspectives for scanning ground-based water-vapor differential absorption lidar. 1.4W maximum output power has been achieved at room temperature operation and at 12.5W absorbed power using a 532 nm emitting pump laser. The beam quality has been investigated by M2 measurements at different pump power. The effect from a growing pump mode and thermal lensing has been observed as the beam divergence angle decreases and the beam waist radius enlargens with increasing pump power.
We compared single-side pumping (SSP) and double-side pumping (DSP) of a semiconductor membrane external-cavity surface-emitting laser (MECSEL). The MECSEL's active region was based on a 4×3 AlGaAs quantum well (QW) structure. This structure was embedded between two silicon carbide (SiC) wafer pieces that were used as transparent intra-cavity (IC) heat spreaders creating a symmetrical cooling environment. The MECSEL structure targeted emission at 780nm and was operated at 20°C heat sink temperature. Via DSP the differential efficiency was improved from 31.9% to 34.4 %. The laser threshold was reduced from 0.79 W to 0.69 W of absorbed pump power while the maximum output power was increased from 3.13 W to 3.22 W. The DSP configuration enabled these improvements by a reduced thermal resistance of the gain element by 9 %. The MECSEL operated at a fundamental Gaussian TEM00 mode profile and the beam quality was measured to be M2 <1.09. We further demonstrate a maximum tuning range from 767 nm to 811 nm. A similar active region with about half the thickness (2×3 AlGaAs QWs) was investigated using the DSP configuration and first results are presented here. 500-μm-thick sapphire IC heat spreaders were used instead of SiC. The output power exceeded 0.5W and the emission was spectrally located around 770 nm.
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