Abstract

Narrow line-width high-power laser sources in the red spectral range as well as their higher harmonics are sought for a variety of applications such as spectroscopy, holography and interferometry. Such laser sources can be manufactured using master-oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) configurations [1, 2]. However, catastrophic optical damage (COD) limits the input power of conventional tapered amplifiers (TPA) with a ridge-waveguide (RW) input section to a few milliwatt. As the drive current is limited by thermal roll-over the output power depends strongly on the input power, and so far only 500 mW could be demonstrated. To increase the optical output power beyond this limit we propose to omit the RW section and shape the beam with suitable optics. Such truncated tapered amplifiers (TTA) reduce the facet load and allow higher output powers of a MOPA [3].

© 2015 IEEE