Antonio Sanchez-Rubio

Localized laser etching of compound semiconductors in aqueous solution

A laser‐based technique for rapid, anisotropic etching of compound semiconductors is described. Both holes for through‐wafer vias and high‐resolution diffraction gratings have been made with the process.

Near-diffraction-limited diode laser arrays by wavelength beam combining

We demonstrate 35 W output peak power with M2 approximately 1.35 in both dimensions from a 100 element, 100 microm pitch slab-coupled optical waveguide laser diode array using wavelength beam combining.

Active coherent beam combining of diode lasers

We have demonstrated active coherent beam combination (CBC) of up to 218 semiconductor amplifiers with 38.5 W cw output using up to eleven one-dimensional 21-element individually addressable diode amplifier arrays operating at 960 nm. The amplifier array elements are slab-coupled-optical-waveguide semiconductor amplifiers (SCOWAs) set up in a master-oscillator-power-amplifier configuration. Diffractive optical elements divide the master-oscillator beam to seed multiple arrays of SCOWAs. A SCOWA was phase actuated by adjusting the drive current to each element and controlled using a stochastic-parallel-gradient-descent (SPGD) algorithm for the active CBC. The SPGD is a hill-climbing algorithm that maximizes on-axis intensity in the far field, providing phase locking without needing a reference beam.

High-Brightness Wavelength Beam Combined Semiconductor Laser Diode Arrays

We report the wavelength beam combining of an array of high-power high-brightness 970-nm slab-coupled optical waveguide lasers. A 50-W peak power under quasi-continuous-wave (CW) operation was measured in an output beam with a beam quality of M_x,y ²=1.2, and 30 W under CW operation was measured with a beam quality of M_x,y ²=2

Efficient, high-brightness wavelength-beam-combined commercial off-the-shelf diode stacks achieved by use of a wavelength-chirped volume Bragg grating

We report a method of scaling the spatial brightness from commercial off-the-shelf diode laser stacks through wavelength beam combining, by use of a linearly wavelength-chirped volume Bragg grating (VBG). Using a three-bar commercial stack of broad-area lasers and a VBG, we demonstrate 89.5 W cw of beam-combined output with a beam-combining efficiency of 75%. The output beam has a propagation factor M2 approximately 26 on the slow axis and M2 approximately 21 on the fast axis. This corresponds to a brightness of approximately 20 MW/cm2 sr. To our knowledge, this is the highest brightness broad-area diode laser system. We achieve 81% coupling efficiency into a 100 microm, 0.22 N.A. fiber.

1450-nm high-brightness wavelength-beam combined diode laser array

We have demonstrated wavelength beam combining of a 1450-nm diode laser array with a novel smile compensation method. We have achieved 20-W cw from a 25-element single bar with an M(2) of 1.9 (fast axis) x 10 (wavelength-beam-combined dimension).

High-brightness tapered quantum cascade lasers

An index-guided tapered quantum cascade laser emitting near 9.5 μm with sloped sidewalls and no anti-reflection coating is presented, and the performance for devices with taper half-angles of 1° and 2° is investigated. The 1° device delivers up to 2.5 W of peak optical power at room temperature with beam quality-factor M2 = 2.08, while the two-degree device outputs 3.8 W with M2 = 2.25 for a maximum brightness of 1.87 MW cm−2 sr−1.

High efficiency coherent beam combining of semiconductor optical amplifiers

We demonstrate 40 W coherently combined output power in a single diffraction-limited beam from a one-dimensional 47-element array of angled-facet slab-coupled optical waveguide amplifiers at 1064 nm. The output from each emitter was collimated and overlapped onto a diffractive optical element combiner using a common transform lens. Phase locking was achieved via active feedback on each amplifiers drive current to maximize the power in the combined beam. The combining efficiency at all current levels was nearly constant at 87%.

External cavity beam combining of 21 semiconductor lasers using SPGD

Active coherent beam combining of laser oscillators is an attractive way to achieve high output power in a diffraction limited beam. Here we describe an active beam combining system used to coherently combine 21 semiconductor laser elements with an 81% beam combining efficiency in an external cavity configuration compared with an upper limit of 90% efficiency in the particular configuration of the experiment. Our beam combining system utilizes a stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm for active phase control. This work demonstrates that active beam combining is not subject to the scaling limits imposed on passive-phasing systems.

High speed, high power one-dimensional beam steering from a 6-element optical phased array

Beam steering at high speed and high power is demonstrated from a 6-element optical phased array using coherent beam combining (CBC) techniques. The steering speed, defined as the inverse of the time to required to sweep the beam across the steering range, is 40 MHz and the total power is 396 mW. The measured central lobe FWHM width is 565 μrad. High on-axis intensity is maintained periodically by phase-locking the array via a stochastic-parallel-gradient-descent (SPGD) algorithm. A master-oscillator-power-amplifier (MOPA) configuration is used where the amplifier array elements are semiconductor slab-coupled-optical-waveguide-amplifiers (SCOWAs). The beam steering is achieved by LiNbO(3) phase modulators; the phase-locking occurs by current adjustment of the SCOWAs. The system can be readily scaled to GHz steering speed and multiwatt-class output.