Abstract

High-power semiconductor lasers have demonstrated several significant advantages over other lasers including high power, greater efficiency, more compactness, and tower cost. Recently, semiconductor lasers have demonstrated high-power coherent operation in the form of a monolithically-integrated master oscillator power amplifier (M-MOPA), where 2 W cw has been demonstrated in a single diffraction-limited beam.¹ In this paper, we discuss the operation of the M-MOPA to an output power in excess of 3 W cw in a single diffraction-limited beam. This is the highest power demonstrated by a semiconductor laser in a diffraction-limited mode.

© 1993 Optical Society of America