Daiichiro Tanaka

Warm-white light-emitting diode with yellowish orange SiAlON ceramic phosphor

A warm-white light-emitting diode (LED) without blending of different kinds of phosphors is demonstrated. An approach that consists of a blue LED chip and a wavelength-conversion phosphor is carried out. The phosphor is a newly developed yellowish orange CaEuSiAlON ceramic phosphor with high efficiency. The CIE1931 chromaticity coordinates (x, y) are (0.458, 0.414), the color temperature is 2750 K, and the luminous efficacy of this LED is 25.9 lm/W at room temperature and with a forward-bias current of 20 mA. The chromaticity of the assembled LED is more thermally stable than that of a LED with a conventional oxide phosphor (YAG:Ce) because of the better thermal stability of the oxynitride phosphor.

White Light-Emitting Diode Lamps Using Oxynitride and Nitride Phosphor Materials

White-light emitting diode lamps for general illumination can be realized by a combination of a blue light-emitting diode semiconductor die and phosphors. Newly developed oxynitride and nitride phosphors are promising candidates for this application because they have suitable excitation and emission wavelengths and stable optical properties in a high temperature environment. High brightness warm-white LED lamps have been realized using a yellowish-orange α-SiAlON oxynitride phosphor. High color-rendering index white LED lamps have been also realized using three color oxynitride/nitride phosphors.

3 kW single stage all-fiber Yb-doped single-mode fiber laser for highly reflective and highly thermal conductive materials processing

A 3 kW single stage all-fiber Yb-doped single-mode fiber laser with bi-directional pumping configuration has been demonstrated. Our newly developed high-power LD modules are employed for a high available pump power of 4.9 kW. The length of the delivery fiber is 20 m which is long enough to be used in most of laser processing machines. An output power of 3 kW was achieved at a pump power of 4.23 kW. The slope efficiency was 70%. SRS was able to be suppressed at the same output power by increasing ratio of backward pump power. The SRS level was improved by 5dB when 57% backward pump ratio was adopted compared with the case of 50%. SRS was 35dB below the laser power at the output power of 3 kW even with a 20-m delivery fiber. The M-squared factor was 1.3. Single-mode beam quality was obtained. To evaluate practical utility of the 3 kW single-mode fiber laser, a Bead-on-Plate (BoP) test onto a pure copper plate was executed. The BoP test onto a copper plate was made without stopping or damaging the laser system. That indicates our high power single-mode fiber lasers can be used practically in processing of materials with high reflectivity and high thermal conductivity.

2 kW single-mode fiber laser with 20-m long delivery fiber and high SRS suppression

A 2 kw single-mode fiber laser with a 20-m long delivery fiber and high back reflection resistance has been demonstrated. An Yb-doped fiber with large core size and differential modal gain is used to realize high SRS suppression and single-mode operation simultaneously. The 20 m-long delivery fiber gives flexibility to the design of processing systems. An output power of 2 kW is achieved at a pump power of 2.86 kW. The slope efficiency is 70%. The power of the Stokes light is less than -50 dB below the laser power at the output power of 2 kW even with a 20-m delivery fiber. Nearly diffraction-limited beam quality is also confirmed (M2 = 1.2). An output power of 3 kW is believed to be achieved by increasing pumping power. The back reflection resistance properties of the fabricated singlemode fiber laser is evaluated numerically by the SRS gain calculated from measured laser output spectra and fiber characteristics. The acceptable power of the back reflection light into the fiber core is estimated to be 500 W which is high enough for processing of highly reflective materials. The output power fluctuation caused by SRS and back reflection in materials processing will be well suppressed. Our high power single-mode fiber lasers can provide high quality and stable processing of highly reflective materials.

High-brightness laser diode module over 300W with 100μm/Na 0.22 fiber

High-brightness laser diode module over 300 W with 100 μm core/NA 0.22 fiber has been developed by integrating the several tens of optimally designed single emitter laser diodes in a newly designed package. We employed the Asymmetric Decoupled Confinement Heterostructure (ADCH) and the wide strip width to increase the durability for the catastrophic optical damage. High fiber-coupling efficiency was obtained with the uniquely designed micro-optical system. In addition, low thermal resistance made it possible to operate higher power. As a result, 300 W power was achieved without thermal rollover at 15.5 A with significantly high reliability. The high-brightness modules have a great advantage for high power fiber lasers such as 10 kW and beyond.

Tunable second order dispersion compensator using fiber Bragg grating with double ring structure

Tunable second order dispersion compensator is realized utilizing linear chirped FBG with double ring structure. Tunable range from -100 to 100 ps/nm/sup 2/ is achieved in keeping center wavelength and first order dispersion constant.

High-power fiber-coupled pump lasers for fiber lasers

We present high-power fiber-coupled pump modules utilized effectively for ultra-high power single-mode (SM) fiber lasers. Maximum output power of 392 W was achieved at 23 A for 915 nm pump, and 394 W for 976 nm pump. Fiber core diameter is 118 μm and case temperature is 25deg. C. Polarization multiplexing technique was newly applied to our optical system. High-reliability of the laser diodes (LD) at high-power operation has been demonstrated by aging tests. Advanced package structure was developed that manages uncoupled light around input end of the fiber. 800 hours continuous drive with uncoupled light power of 100 W has been achieved.

5-kW single stage all-fiber Yb-doped single-mode fiber laser for materials processing

Stimulated Raman scattering gives back reflection sensitivity to a high power fiber laser. Therefor SRS suppression is necessary in order to realize stable laser processing by a high power fiber laser. A 5-kW single-mode ytterbium doped fiber laser with a 20-m long delivery fiber has been realized. The fiber laser is an all-fiber single-stage Fabry-Perot system in a co-pumping configuration. The optical to optical efficiency was 80% at the output power of 5.0 kW. And the M-squared figure of 1.3 was obtained. The Stokes light by SRS is suppressed to 45 dB below the laser output by using fibers with the effective mode area of 600 μm2 . While SRS was well suppressed, four wave mixing was observed with the frequency shift of ~6 THz. Four wave mixing between the fundamental mode and the secondary modes is believed to take place. Four wave mixing is believed not to give back reflection sensitivity to the fiber laser. The 5-kW single-mode fiber laser was applied to laser processing. Bead-on-plate tests were carried out with a galvanometer scanner. The laser ran without stopping nor damaging the laser system even during processing highly reflective material. This implies that our SRS suppressed single-mode fiber laser can be used practically in most of processing systems.

High-brightness and high-efficiency fiber-coupled module for fiber laser pump with advanced laser diode

High-brightness and high-efficiency fiber-coupled pump module has been developed with newly designed laser diodes and improved spatial optical system. High-power operation was realized by widening laser stripe width. The optical system of the module consists of only spatial multiplexing, not using polarization or wavelength multiplexing technique. Therefore it has advantages that no power loss at a polarization beam combiner or gratings, low material costs of optics, and high excitation efficiency by single wavelength excitation for a fiber laser. The peak power conversion efficiency of the module is 65.6% at 120 W output power, and its efficiency maintains more than 60% up to 220 W at 19 A driving current, and the maximum output power is 252 W at 23 A, at 25 degrees C heat sink temperature. The fiber outside diameter of the module is conventional 125 μm. Center wavelength of the laser is 915 nm.

Refractive index change and presensitization using 172-nm excimer lamp

Refractive index change and presensitization effect induced by irradiation of a xenon excimer lamp (λ=172nm) is studied. The refractive index changes over 0.005 and 0.003 are confirmed in hydrogenated and presensitized fibers respectively.