Bernhard Stojetz

Beyond blue pico laser: development of high power blue and low power direct green

There is a big need on R&D concerning visible lasers for projection applications. The pico-size mobile projection on the one hand awaits the direct green lasers with sufficiently long lifetimes at optical powers above 50mW. In this paper we demonstrate R&D-samples emitting at 519nm with lifetimes up to 10.000 hours. The business projection on the other hand requires high power operation and already uses blue lasers and phosphor conversion, but there is a strong demand for higher power levels. We investigate the power limits of R&D laser structures. In continuous wave operation, the power is limited by thermal roll-over. With an excellent power conversion efficiency of up to 29% the thermal roll-over is as high as 2.5W for a single emitter in TO56 can. We do not observe significant leakage at high currents. Driven in short pulse operation to prevent the laser from self heating, linear laser characteristics of optical power versus electrical current are observed up to almost 8W of optical power.

Blue Superluminescent Light-Emitting Diodes with Output Power above 100 mW for Picoprojection

We present a blue InGaN research and development superluminescent light-emitting diode (SLED) that is suitable for picoprojection. The SLED reaches an output power of >100 mW with a peak wavelength of 443 nm and a spectral bandwidth of >2.6 nm as well as a single-mode far-field driven in cw mode at 25 °C. In order to figure out an optimized waveguide design, which enables such a high output power at lowest operation current, we compare the performance of diodes with curved and tilted shaped ridges in detail, using the lasing threshold current as a criterion for lasing or superluminescence, respectively.

Power blue and green laser diodes and their applications

InGaN based green laser diodes with output powers up to 50mW are now well established for variety of applications ranging from leveling to special lighting effects and mobile projection of 12lm brightness. In future the highest market potential for visible single mode profile lasers might be laser projection of 20lm. Therefore direct green single-mode laser diodes with higher power are required. We found that self heating was the limiting factor for higher current operation. We present power-current characteristics of improved R and D samples with up to 200mW in cw-operation. An optical output power of 100mW is reached at 215mA, a current level which is suitable for long term operation. Blue InGaN laser diodes are also the ideal source for phosphor based generation of green light sources of high luminance. We present a light engine based on LARP (Laser Activated Remote Phosphor) which can be used in business projectors of several thousand lumens on screen. We discuss the advantages of a laser based systems in comparison with LED light engines. LARP requires highly efficient blue power laser diodes with output power above 1W. Future market penetration of LARP will require lower costs. Therefore we studied new designs for higher powers levels. R and D chips with power-current characteristics up to 4W in continuous wave operation on C-mount at 25°C are presented.

GaInN laser diodes from 440 to 530nm: a performance study on single-mode and multi-mode R&D designs

The range of applications of blue and green lasers is increasing from year to year. Driving factors are costs and performance. On one hand we study the characteristics of low power R&D c-plane laser structures with improved Gaussian vertical and horizontal beam profile: We present new best values for efficiencies of single mode green lasers of 10.8% at 517nm and new long wavelength data at 532nm with efficiency of 6.5%. Furthermore, we present a new R&D design of a blue single mode laser diode with a very low threshold of 8.5mA. On the other hand, recent R&D results on broad area multi-mode power designs are shown: Efficiencies of 43% at 4W optical output power are achieved. Lifetime tests as long as 10000h are presented. High reliability is reached by a new facet design.

InGaN power laser chips in a novel 50W multi-die package

In this paper we report recent developments on high power blue laser chips. Reduction of internal losses as well as optimized thermal management had been essential to increase optical output power. R and D samples with average performance of 3W optical output at junction temperatures of 130°C are demonstrated. The chips are suitable for use in a novel multi chip housing: For the first time up to 20 blue laser chips have been packaged into one compact housing resulting in the first InGaN laser device with optical output > 50W. The highly integrated package offers a unique small size. The outer dimensions of the package are 25.5mm x 35mm with an emitting surface of 16mm x 16.5mm. Therefore the complexity of optical alignment is dramatically reduced and only a single sheet multi lens array is required for beam collimation. Besides the unique technical performance the multi-die package offers significantly lower assembly costs because of the reduced complexity and assembly time. The butterfly package contains 4 bars with up to 5 multimode laser chips in series connection on each bar operating at 2.3A. The typical module wavelength is 450nm +/- 10nm. At a case temperature of 50°C the R and D samples achieve efficiencies of typ. 30% and an optical output power of 50W corresponding to an electrical power consumption of ~165W. This new technology can be used for high performance light engines of high brightness projectors.

Visible high power fiber coupled diode lasers

In this paper we report on further development of fiber coupled high-power diode lasers in the visible spectral range. New visible laser modules presented in this paper include the use of multi single emitter arrays @ 450 nm leading to a 120 W fiber coupled unit with a beam quality of 44 mm x mrad, as well as very compact modules with multi-W output power from 405 nm to 640 nm. However, as these lasers are based on single emitters, power scaling quickly leads to bulky laser units with a lot of optical components to be aligned. We also report on a new approach based on 450 nm diode laser bars, which dramatically reduces size and alignment effort. These activities were performed within the German government-funded project “BlauLas”: a maximum output power of 80 W per bar has been demonstrated @ 450 nm. We show results of a 200 μm NA0.22 fiber coupled 35 W source @ 450 nm, which has been reduced in size by a factor of 25 compared to standard single emitter approach. In addition, we will present a 200 μm NA0.22 fiber coupled laser unit with an output power of 135 W.

Shortwave infrared (SWIR) emission from 450 nm InGaN diode lasers

Shortwave infrared emission from 450 nm InGaN diode lasers is analyzed, and its physical origin is located by SWIR imaging of operating devices. Emission spectra taken in the 900-1700 nm range reveal three main contributions located at 900-1130 nm, 1130-1350 nm, and beyond 1350 nm. In concert with photoluminescence measurements at the substrate, these emission bands are identified as, first, genuine deep-level electroluminescence from the active region and deep-level defect-related emission from the substrate that is pumped by spontaneous 450 nm primary emission, second, pure deep-level defect emission, and third, Planck’s black-body radiation from the entire heated device and an additional deep-level defect contribution.

Blue and green nitride based laser diodes for projection

Summary form only given. Two fields for laser projection have attended big interest since several years due to the potential of high volume markets. One is the mobile projection; ideally a projection unit embedded in a mobile phone. For customer acceptance a reasonable price and high brightness of such a device are crucial. Mobile pico projectors need a brightness of 15 to 20 lumens. While red and blue laser with sufficient output power are available, direct green single mode laser with the necessary power are still under development. We report R&D results of single mode green laser with output power up to 200mW. This demonstrates that long term operation of green laser at 80mW to 100mW output power is realistic. The second field is the business projection with brightness up to several thousands of lumens. The concept here is to use blue high power laser as blue light source and also for the green light by conversion technology. The challenge is to reduce the cost of the light engine which is strongly dominated by the output power of the laser. We report R&D results of blue high power laser with an output power up to 3 watt.