Micromachines (Aug 2024)

Study on 1550 nm Human Eye-Safe High-Power Tunnel Junction Quantum Well Laser

  • Qi Wu,
  • Dongxin Xu,
  • Xuehuan Ma,
  • Zaijin Li,
  • Yi Qu,
  • Zhongliang Qiao,
  • Guojun Liu,
  • Zhibin Zhao,
  • Lina Zeng,
  • Hao Chen,
  • Lin Li,
  • Lianhe Li

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15081042
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 8
p. 1042

Abstract

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Falling within the safe bands for human eyes, 1550 nm semiconductor lasers have a wide range of applications in the fields of LIDAR, fast-ranging long-distance optical communication, and gas sensing. The 1550 nm human eye-safe high-power tunnel junction quantum well laser developed in this paper uses three quantum well structures connected by two tunnel junctions as the active region; photolithography and etching were performed to form two trenches perpendicular to the direction of the epitaxial layer growth with a depth exceeding the tunnel junction, and the trenches were finally filled with oxides to reduce the extension current. Finally, a 1550 nm InGaAlAs quantum well laser with a pulsed peak power of 31 W at 30 A (10 KHz, 100 ns) was realized for a single-emitter laser device with an injection strip width of 190 μm, a ridge width of 300 μm, and a cavity length of 2 mm, with a final slope efficiency of 1.03 W/A, and with a horizontal divergence angle of about 13° and a vertical divergence angle of no more than 30°. The device has good slope efficiency, and this 100 ns pulse width can be effectively applied in the fields of fog-transparent imaging sensors and fast headroom ranging radar areas.

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