We report on the development of the latest generation of high power laser diodes at 14xx nm wavelength range suitable for industrial applications such as plastics welding and medical applications including acne treatment, skin rejuvenation and surgery. The paper presents the newest chip generation developed at II-VI Laser Enterprise, increasing the output power and the power conversion efficiency while retaining the reliability of the initial design. At an emission wavelength around 1440 nm we applied the improved design to a variety of assemblies exhibiting maximum power values as high as 7 W for broad-area single emitters. For 1 cm wide bars on conductive coolers and for bars on active micro channel coolers we have obtained 50 W and 72 W in continuous wave (cw) operation respectively. The maximum power measured for a 1 cm bar operated with 50 μs pulse width and 0.01% duty cycle was 184 W, demonstrating the potential of the chip design for optimized cooling. Power conversion efficiency values as high as 50% for a single emitter device and over 40% for mounted bars have been demonstrated, reducing the required power budget to operate the devices. Both active and conductive bar assembly configurations show polarization purity greater than 98%. Life testing has been conducted at 95 A, 50% duty cycle and 0.5 Hz hard pulsed operation for bars which were soldered to conductive copper CS mounts using our hard solder technology. The results after 5500 h, or 10 million “on-off” cycles show stable operation.
New-generation multi-mode 9xx mini-bars used in fiber pump modules have been developed. The epitaxial designs have
been improved for lower fast-axis and slow-axis divergence, higher slope efficiency and PCE by optimizing layer
structures as well as minimizing internal loss. For 915nm mini-bars with 5-mm cavity length, maximum PCE is as high
as ~61% for 35W operation and remains above 59% at 45W.
For 808nm, a PCE of 56% at 135W CW operation has been demonstrated with 36%-fill-factor, 3-mm-cavity-length,
water-cooled bars at 50°C coolant temperature. On passive-cooled standard CS heatsinks, PCE of >51% is measured for
100W operation at 50°C heatsink temperature. Leveraging these improvements has enabled low-cost bars for high-power,
high-temperature applications.
Fiber combining multiple pump sources for fiber lasers has enabled the thermal and
reliability advantages of distributed architectures. Recently, mini-bar based modules have been
demonstrated which combine the advantages of independent emitter failures previously shown in
single-stripe pumps with improved brightness retention yielding over 2 MW/cm2Sr in compact
economic modules. In this work multiple fiber-coupled mini-bars are fiber combined to yield an
output of over 400 W with a brightness exceeding 1 MW/cm2Sr in an economic, low loss
architecture.
High-power, packaged diode-laser sources continue to evolve through co-engineering of epitaxial design, beam conditioning and thermal management. Here we review examples of improvements made to key attributes including reliable power, brightness, power per unit volume and value.
Leveraging improvements to device structures and cooling technologies, ultra-high-power bars have been integrated into
multi-bar stacks to obtain CW power densities in excess of 2.8 kW/cm2 near 960 nm with spectral widths of <4nm FWHM. These characteristics promise to enable cost-effective solutions for a variety of applications that demand very high spatial and/or spectral brightness. Using updated device designs, mini-bar variants have been employed to derive CW powers of several tens of Watts near 940 nm on traditional single-emitter platforms. For example, >37 W CW have been obtained from 5-emitter devices on standard CuW CT heatsinks with AuSn solder. Near 808 nm, a PCE of 65% with a slope efficiency of 1.29 W/A has been demonstrated with a 20%-fill-factor, 2-mm-cavity-length bar.
This paper gives an overview of recent product development and advanced engineering of diode laser technology at
Spectra-Physics. Focused development of device design, heat-sinking and beam-conditioning has yielded significant
improvement in both power conversion efficiency (PCE) and reliable power, leading to a family of new products. CW
PCEs of 60% to 70% have been delivered for the 880 to 980 nm wavelength range. For 780 to 810 nm, PCE are typically
between 50% and 56%. Comprehensive life-testing indicates that the reliable powers of devices based on the new
developments exceed those of established, highly reliable, production designs.
For the progress of ultra-high power bars, CW output power in excess of 1000 W and 640 W have been demonstrated
from single laser bars with doubled-side and single-side cooling, respectively. Spatial power density of greater than 2.8
kW/cm2 and FWHM spectral widths of 3.5 nm have been obtained from laser stacks.
Successful thermal and stress management of edge-emitting GaAs-based diode lasers is key to their performance and
reliability in high-power operation. Complementary to advanced epitaxial structures and die-fabrication processes, next-generation
heatsink designs are required to meet the requirements of emerging applications. In this paper, we detail the
development of both active and passive heatsinks designed to match the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the
laser die. These CTE-matched heatsinks also offer low thermal resistance, compatibility with AuSn bonding and
improved manufacturability. Early data representing the performance of high-power devices on the new heatsinks are
included in the presentation.
Among the designs are a water-cooled, mini-channel heatsink with a CTE of 6.8 ppm/°C (near to the nominal 6.5
ppm/°C CTE of GaAs) and a thermal resistance of 0.43 °C/W (assuming a 27%-fill-factor diode-laser bar with a cavity
length of 2 mm). The water flow in the heatsink is isolated from the electrical potential, eliminating the possibility of
electrolytic corrosion. An additional feature of the integrated design is the reduction in required assembly steps.
Our next-generation, passive, CTE-matched heatsink employs a novel design to achieve a reduction of 16% in thermal
resistance (compared to the predecessor commercial product). CTE's can be engineered to fall in the range of
6.2-7.2 ppm/°C on the bar mounting surface. Comparisons between simulated performance and experimental data (both
in CW and long-pulse operation) will be presented for several new heat-sink designs.
Micro-channel heatsink assemblies made from bonding multi-layered etched metal sheets are commercially available
and are often used for removing the high waste heat loads generated by the operation of diode-laser bars. Typically, a
diode-laser bar is bonded onto a micro-channel (also known as mini-channel) heatsink then stacked in an array to create
compact high power diode-laser sources for a multitude of applications. Under normal operation, the diode-laser waste
heat is removed by passing coolant (typically de-ionized water) through the channels of the heatsink. Because of this,
the heatsink internal structure, including path length and overall channel size, is dictated by the liquid coolant properties.
Due to the material characteristics of these conductive heatsinks, and the necessary electrically serial stacking geometry,
there are several restrictions imparted on the coolant liquid to maintain performance and lifetime. Such systems require
carefully monitored and conductive limited de-ionized water, as well as require stable pH levels, and suitable particle
filtration. These required coolant systems are either stand alone, or heat exchangers are typically costly and heavy
restricting certain applications where minimal weight to power ratios are desired.
In this paper, we will baseline the existing water cooled Spectra-Physics MonsoonTM heatsink technology utilizing
compressed air, and demonstrate a novel modular stackable heatsink concept for use with gaseous fluids that, in some
applications may replace the existing commercially available water-cooled heatsink technology. We will explain the
various benefits of utilizing air while maintaining mechanical form factors and packing densities. We will also show
thermal-fluid modeling results and predictions as well as operational performance curves for efficiency and power and
compare these data to the existing commercially available technology.
Hanxuan Li, Irving Chyr, Denny Brown, Xu Jin, Frank Reinhardt, Terry Towe, Touyen Nguyen, Raman Srinivasan, Myra Berube, Robert Miller, Kiran Kuppuswamy, Yongdan Hu, Trevor Crum, Tom Truchan, James Harrison
Ongoing optimization of epitaxial designs, MOCVD growth processes, and device engineering at Spectra-Physics has
yielded significant improvement in both power conversion efficiency (PCE) and reliable power, without compromising
manufacturability in a high-volume production environment. Maximum PCE of 72.2% was measured at 25 °C for 976-
nm single-emitter devices with 3-mm cavity length. 928 W continuous-wave (CW) output power has been demonstrated
from a high-efficiency (65% maximum PCE) single laser bar with 5-mm cavity length and 77% fill factor. Eight-element
laser bars (976 nm) with 100&mgr;m-wide emitters have been operated at >148 W CW, corresponding to linear power
densities at the facet >185 mW/&mgr;m. Ongoing life-testing, in combination with stepped stress tests, indicate rates of
random failure and wear-out are well below those of earlier device designs.
For operation near 800 nm, the design has been optimized for high-power, high-temperature applications. The highest
PCE for water-cooled stacks was 54.7% at 35°C coolant temperature.
We present a novel approach to achieving both wavelength stabilization and
wavelength agility in high-power two-dimensional stacks of high-power laser diodes. This
approach utilizes volume Bragg gratings® with Bragg period that varies as a function of
position within the clear aperture of the element according to a periodic function with period
equal to the spacing between the laser diode bars within the stack. The Bragg period varies
linearly within each period so that translation of the volume Bragg grating element results in
simultaneous tuning of the wavelength of all the bars in the stack. As a result, the wavelength
of the stack is adjustable, stable and the emission line is narrowed to < 0.5 nm. This kind of
laser diode stacks is particularly suitable for pumping of gaseous media with very narrow
absorption lines, e.g. atomic vapors of rubidium, cesium, potassium etc.
High power GaAs-based high power diode bars produce wavelengths in the range of 780 to 980 nm and are widely used for pumping a broad range of rare earth doped solid-state lasers. As the markets for these laser systems mature, diode lasers that operate at higher power levels, greater overall efficiency, and higher reliability are in high demand. In this paper we report efficiencies of over 70% in the 9xx-nm band, continuous wave power levels over 340 Watts in the 8xx-nm band, and reliability data at or above 100 Watts. We will also review the latest advances in performance and detail the basic physics and material science required to achieve these results.
Operation of 808-nm laser diode pumps at elevated temperature is crucial to many applications. Reliable operation at high power is limited by high thermal load and low catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) threshold at elevated temperature range. We demonstrate high efficiency and high power operation at elevated temperatures with high COMD power. These results were achieved through device design optimization such as growth conditions, doping profile, and materials composition of the quantum-well and other layers. Electrical-to-optical efficiency as high as 62 percent was obtained through lowered threshold current and lowered series resistance and increased slope efficiency. The performance of single broad-area laser diodes scales to that of high power single bars on water-cooled copper micro-channel heatsinks or conductively-cooled CS heatsinks. No reduction in bar performance or significant spectral broadening is seen when these micro-channel coolers are assembled into 6-bar and 18-bar cw stacks for the highest power levels.
We have demonstrated record high cw and quasi-cw operation of InP-based 1.5 μm laser arrays (bars) and water-cooled stacks. High-efficiency and high-power operation were achieved through device design optimization including the multi-quantum well design, crystal growth process, doping profile, and material composition. Internal quantum efficiency, mode loss, gain parameters, and temperature sensitivity parameters are reported. Single-stripe devices produced 3 watts of cw output power and 35 percent electrical-to-optical efficiency. We demonstrated 40 watts of cw power from single bars on water-cooled copper-microchannel heatsinks. A stack of 20 bars that were collimated using fast axis microlenses achieved greater than 350 watts of cw power.
Computer simulation was done to determine the effect of the position of a laser diode bar on a laser diode cooler compared to the effect of changing the thickness of the top layer of copper on the laser diode cooler. The range of copper layer thicknesses tested was from 0.1mm to 1.4mm. The thicker the top layer, the better the thermal performance of the cooler up to 1.4mm. Above 1.4mm there was not measurably increased performance. The range of power input was 40W and 80W per bar. The position of the laser diode bar was only distinguishable at the 80W power level and the impractical top layer thicknesses of 0.1mm and 0.2mm, meaning that top layer thickness is much more important for improved thermal performance than the positioning of the bar on the cooler.
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