We report the design and manufacturing of a tunable VCSEL with an HCG MEMS mirror and an integrated detector oblique to the optical cavity for measuring output power without disturbing the laser cavity. This allows for a single laser device with integrated power monitoring capabilities that can be used in concert with external electronics to stabilize the power or monitor optical feedback of the device for sensing applications. The HCG tunable VCSEL is modified to incorporate a sacrificial layer capable of detecting light at the VCSEL’s operating wavelength. For the MEMS release process, the sacrificial layer is removed from the optical cavity defined by the VCSEL mirrors and active region. The release process is designed to create a cavern around the optical cavity and walls of such cavern are composed by sacrificial layer material. Thus, the sacrificial layer material is removed from the optical cavity, but is kept surrounding it. Light scattered at the interface semiconductor-air hits the cavern walls and modifies current through the MEMS terminals (Idet). Any change in VCSEL output power (Pout) is directly related to a change on Idet through MEMS terminal, creating a direct relationship of Pout vs. Idet. To the best of our knowledge, there is no previous report of a VCSEL with integrated oblique intracavity detector.
James Haden, John Endriz, Masamichi Sakamoto, David Dawson-Elli, Gerald Browder, Kenneth Anderson, David Mundinger, D. Philip Worland, Edmund Wolak, Donald Scifres
Sophisticated packaging architectures have been developed that enable low cost, very high average power, long lived pumping of solid state lasers. Single water cooled manifolds now provide slab pumping of up to 2.5 kW of average optical power, while low cost yet flexible bar mounting techniques allow burn-in that enables very long lifetimes. Architecture modification allows for high peak power of up to 80 kW per water cooled pump manifold. Specialized high brightness packaging now allows approximately 20 watt cw bars to be lensed into less than 200 micrometers diameter spot sizes (approximately 54 kW/cm2).
Methods of reformatting the output of laser diodes and maintaining much of their intrinsic brightness are discussed. A commercial, fiber-coupled package is shown with a symmetric etendue and a brightness of 15 kW/(cm2 sr). A symmeterized beam with a brightness of 200 kW/(cm2 sr) is demonstrated by using a combination of a micro-lensed diode array and a lens array.
Ten optical fibers were aligned to a single diode laser bar. The fibers were fed through a single optical connector with an aperture diameter of 381 micrometers . Coupling efficiencies as high as 65% were achieved with antireflection-coated fibers approximately 3 cm in length. Over 6.5 W cw at a power density of 5.7 kW/cm2 was delivered from the connector output.
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