High-power 810-nm GaAsP-AlGaAs diode lasers with narrow beam divergence

AlGaAs-based large optical cavity (LOC) laser diodes (LDs) emitting at 808 nm using a tensile-strained GaAsP quantum-well (QW) were developed. LDs wit h 1-mum-LOC and 2 mum-LOC structure show a very high conitinuous wave (CW) output power (8.9 W), a good wall-plug efficiency (50%) and a low degradati on rate (10(-5) h(-1)). The power-current characteristics of broad area LDs with the 1-mum-LOC structure having a higher aluminum content in the waveg uide layer exhibit a higher temperature stability. The 2-mum-LOC diode lase rs with a lower aluminum content and thinner cladding layers has a slightly smaller vertical far-field divergence and a smaller series resistance. The 2-mum-LOC structure was used in laser bars. They have a filling factor of 28% and exhibit a maximum output power of 148 W with a good beam quality of 7.8 degrees x 39 degrees (full-width I/e(2)-power) at 70 W.