Abstract

Recently, the use of large active area semiconductor amplifiers^1–5 has been demonstrated to be an attractive approach for achieving high power emission in a semiconductor device while maintaining diffraction limited output beam characteristics. Using single pass, broad-area (rectangular-shaped active region) traveling wave amplifiers, record near-diffraction limited output powers have been demonstrated, with 21 W generated¹ under pulsed conditions and 3.3 in cw operatiori.⁵ Using amplifiers with a truncated taper electrode configuration, a near-diffraction limited-cw output of 4.5 W was achieved. The operating characteristics of several amplifier designs, including broad-area double pass and single pass and tapered electrode^3,4 single pass structures, will be presented.

© 1993 Optical Society of America