Abstract

For many semiconductor laser uses, such as solid-state laser end pumping, free-space optical communications, and optical detonation, single-lobed diffraction-limited beams of hundreds of milliwatts to multiple watts are required. There has been a recent resurgence of activity that applies unstable resonator concepts to semiconductor lasers to achieve the required beams.¹ The success of that work has resulted from new design considerations which suggest the use of low magnification resonators¹ and the application of focused ion beam micromachining² (FIBM) to precisely form the required curved mirrors. As an extension of this work, we demonstrate high-power (6 W, double facet) high brightness output from an InGaAs strained-layer GRINSCH SQW low-magnification unstable resonator semiconductor laser (URSL) fabricated by FIBM.

© 1992 Optical Society of America