Abstract

Many applications for laser diodes may be considered "eye-safe," generally referring to laser diodes operating with wavelengths in the 2-5 pm range. One approach to the fabrication of laser diodes operating in this wavelength range is to use the antimonides as the epitaxial layers for optical gain.^1–3 Although this work appears promising, eye-safe laser diodes may also be fabricated from epitaxial material grown on InP substrates, allowing for the use of a mature material system with excellent lifetime characteristics. The inclusion of strained-layer InGaAs quantum wells (QWs) into an InGaAsP heterostructure laser diode allows for diode emission to wavelengths as long as 2.1 μm^4,5 This wavelength range covers many applications where eye-safe laser diodes are required. In this work data are presented detailing the high power performance of gain-guided InGaAs/In-GaAsP laser diodes with a In_0.75Ga_0.25AS double quantum well (DQW) active region emitting at λ = 2.0 µm, where a maximum output power of 0.8 W/facet has been achieved.

© 1993 Optical Society of America