Abstract

High-power semiconductor laser diodes (LD’s) emitting at a 1.48-μm wavelength have become increasingly important as pumping light sources for erbium-doped-fiber amplifiers (EDFA’s).^1,2 Recently, introducing strained-layer multiple quantum wells (SL-MQW’s) as active layers in the LD’s has been a most promising approach for enhancing the output power of long-wavelength LD’s.^3,4 Elsewhere we have reported fabrication of what is, to our knowledge, the most powerful yet 1.48-μm SL-MQW LD with a compressive strain of 1%.⁴ In this paper we report the reliability test of the 1.48-μm SL-MQW LD’s at an output power of 160 mW. We also describe the fabrication and the characterization of the pumping-LD module and EDFA with a single pumping LD in application of high-output-power 1.48-μm SL-MQW LD.

© 1993 Optical Society of America