High-power high-brightness tapered diode lasers and amplifiers for eye-safe operation

Spatially single-mode high-power diode lasers and amplifiers are well-established as GaAs based devices at wavelengths around 1 mu. However, there are many applications such as pumping of Raman and rare-earth doped fiber amplifiers, welding of plastics, contact-free soldering, or Lidar/Ladar, for which InP based devices emitting around 1.5 mu would be favorable: Different from GaAs diode lasers, they operate in an eye-safe wavelength region, and low-price standard optical components established for telecommunication can be employed. Additionally, widely tunable high-brightness amplifiers can be employed as versatile S-band semiconductor amplifiers for all-optical networks as well as in spectroscopic applications. We demonstrate both high-power high-brightness InGaAsP/InP lasers and tunable amplifiers based an the ridge waveguide tapered resonator design.