Gi-bum Kim

920-nm Vertical-External-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers With a Slope Efficiency of 58% at Room Temperature

We report a high-power fundamental transverse mode operation of an optically pumped 920-nm vertical-external- cavity surface-emitting laser. The effects of the gain related structural parameters on the laser performance are investigated. Based on the optimization of the gain structure and the thermal management, a maximum pump-limited output power of 12 W in a TEM00 mode with a slope efficiency of 58% (input power of 24 W) was achieved at room temperature.

Enhancement of Pumping Efficiency in a Vertical-External-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser

We report an improved optical pumping efficiency in a vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) by employing the double-band mirror (DBM), which acts as a pump beam reflector as well as a cavity mirror. The optical pumping efficiency of a VECSEL with the DBM was increased by 23%, as compared to one with the conventional distributed Bragg reflector. It was found that the use of the DBM was more effective in the VECSEL with the shorter absorption layer thickness.

Gain structure optimization of vertical external cavity surface emitting laser at 920nm

The authors have optimized a resonant gain structure of a 920nm vertical external cavity surface emitting laser. They found that long saturated carrier lifetime in shallow quantum well (QW) under a high injection level restricted the laser performance. An insertion of nonabsorbing layer in the middle of barrier layers with multi-QWs was very effective to reduce the saturated carrier lifetime and, therefore, to enhance the laser performance. With the optimized gain structure, which had ten periods of triple InGaAs QWs with Al0.3Ga0.7As nonabsorbing layers in the middle of GaAs barriers, they achieved 4.9W output power at 10°C.

Effect of oxygen plasma treatment on nonalloyed Al/Ti-based contact for high power InGaN/GaN vertical light-emitting diodes

InGaN/GaN vertical light emitting diodes (LEDs) with argon (Ar) and oxygen (O2) plasma-treated nonalloyed Al/Ti electrodes were fabricated on sapphire substrates. At the operating current of 350 mA, the forward voltage (VF) for O2 plasma-treated Al/Ti-based devices with dimensions 1360 × 1360 μm2 was improved, whose value was comparable or lower to that of nonalloyed Cr/Au-based devices. The Al/Ti electrodes resulted in improvement in optical output power of LEDs due to their high reflectivity (typically 10%–15% higher based on our data) compared to LEDs with conventional Cr/Au-based electrodes. The x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed the increase in Ga-O peak intensity during O2 plasma treatment. These results demonstrate that O2 plasma-treated Al/Ti electrodes reduced the contact resistance by forming a thin conductive GaOxN1−x layer at n-GaN surface.InGaN/GaN vertical light emitting diodes (LEDs) with argon (Ar) and oxygen (O2) plasma-treated nonalloyed Al/Ti electrodes were fabricated on sapphire substrates. At the operating current of 350 mA, the forward voltage (VF) for O2 plasma-treated Al/Ti-based devices with dimensions 1360 × 1360 μm2 was improved, whose value was comparable or lower to that of nonalloyed Cr/Au-based devices. The Al/Ti electrodes resulted in improvement in optical output power of LEDs due to their high reflectivity (typically 10%–15% higher based on our data) compared to LEDs with conventional Cr/Au-based electrodes. The x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed the increase in Ga-O peak intensity during O2 plasma treatment. These results demonstrate that O2 plasma-treated Al/Ti electrodes reduced the contact resistance by forming a thin conductive GaOxN1−x layer at n-GaN surface.

2 W continuous wave operation of optically pumped blue VECSEL with frequency doubling

We have optimized a resonant gain structure of a 920 nm vertical external cavity surface emitting laser. We found that a long saturated carrier lifetime in shallow quantum well (QW) under a high injection level restricts the laser performance. An insertion of non-absorbing laser in the middle of barrier layers with multi QWs is effective to reduce the saturated carrier lifetime and, therefore, to enhance the laser performance. With the optimized laser structure, which has 10 periods of triple In0.09Ga0.91 As QWs located at the anti-standing wave optical field with Al0.3Ga0.7As non-absorbing layers in the middle of GaAs barrier, we achieved 4.9 W operation at 920nm. Subsequently blue laser was achieved by employing an intra-cavity frequency doubling crystal LBO. As a result, we demonstrated 2 W single transverse mode operation in blue (460 nm) with a 20 W pump laser power. The conversion efficiency from 808 nm pump laser to the blue laser is measured to be 10 %.

A novel design and process for improving the efficiency and reliability of an AC direct LED chip

We have developed a low-cost alternating current (AC) direct light-emitting diode (LED) chip in which bridge rectifiers are implemented within a multi-cell array. The chip was designed and fabricated to form a ladder type electrical circuit of integrated multi-cells for direct operation with high voltage AC power source. Through a new isolation process technique, the luminous flux in the multi-chip LEDs increased by 5%, which is ascribed to the increase of active area in the chip. In this paper, we report on the effects of a cell array design on the luminous efficiency, and a new process to improve the device performance. The 2 W device exhibited a typical luminous efficiency of 85 lm/W at a color temperature of 3000 K and color rendering index (CRI) 80. Furthermore, an advanced design to overcome the optical and electrical degradation by the high reverse voltage applied to a bridge rectifier are also discussed.

Enhancement of the Optical Pumping Efficiency in Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Laser

In this report, we present the improved optical pumping efficiency in vertical external cavity surface emitting laser through the recycling the wasted pumping energy by employing the double band DBR which highly reflects a pump beam as well as a lasing one