Optically pumped high-power semiconductor disk laser with gain element engineered for wide tunability

Other conference contribution, 2010

The layer structure of the gain element in an optically pumped semiconductor disk laser (OP-SDL) was designed for wide tunability. This was achieved by a parametric optimization of the structure, which in effect balanced the spectrally varying influence of the gain of the quantum wells, the longitudinal distribution of the standing wave lasing field in the structure, and the degree of resonance in the subcavity formed between the distributed Bragg reflector at the bottom and the air-semiconductor interface at the top. The quality measure in the optimization was the spectral reflectance of the gain element for light incident from the external cavity at low power. This unsaturated reflectance was compared to its target function, which was constant at a specified value larger than unity over a wide, prescribed wavelength range. The fabricated gain element was used in a linear OP-SDL with a rotatable intra-cavity birefringent filter for wavelength tuning. The design principles for achieving wide tunability were experimentally validated by the strong agreement between measurements and simulations of the spectral threshold pump intensity. Furthermore, tuning experiments at high pump powers were performed showing that the lasing wavelength could be tuned from 967 nm to 1010 nm with a maximum output power of 2.6 W.