John L. Nightingale

High performance laser diode bars with aluminum-free active regions.

We present operating and lifetest data on 795 and 808 nm bars with aluminum-free active regions. Conductively cooled bars operate reliably at CW power outputs of 40 W, and have high efficiency, low beam divergence, and narrow spectra. Record CW powers of 115 W CW are demonstrated at 795 nm for 30% fill-factor bars mounted on microchannel coolers. We also review QCW performance and lifetime for higher fill-factor bars processed on identical epitaxial material.

A high-speed 4*4 Ti:LiNbO/sub 3/ integrated optic switch at 1.5 mu m

The operation of a fully packaged and pigtailed polarization dependent Ti:LiNbO/sub 3/ 4*4 integrated optic switch with an operating wavelength of 1.5 mu m is demonstrated. The switching matrix is fast, with a measured 3-dB small-signal bandwidth greater than 1 GHz. Unwanted cross modulation between channels due to coupling between switching elements was measured and found to be less than -20 dB of the signal strength. The switch is composed of balanced bridge switching elements having a 17-V switching voltage, an 18 dB extinction ratio, and an excess optical loss of 0.6 dB. >

Review of cw high-power diode-pumped green lasers

Recent progress in pump sources and basic materials have allowed the production of commercially viable, high-power, diode-pumped, continuous-wave, green lasers. We will review the history and the technological developments that have allowed this progress.

Simplified method of calculating power transfer between nonparallel dielectric waveguides

A simplified method for calculating the power transfer resulting from nonparallel waveguide regions in directional couplers is presented. Measured values for several Ti:LiNbO(3) directional coupler geometries are given and shown to compare well with theory.

High-power highly reliable Al-free active region laser diodes in the 785- to 830-nm region

Use of aluminum-free epitaxial structures for near-infrared laser diodes has been an active research area in the past decade. These edge-emitting laser diodes have demonstrated operational lifetimes exceeding 10,000 hours at high output powers and high efficiencies. Improvements in epitaxial structure, processing, and packaging have enabled these results. In this paper, we will review developments in aluminum-free laser diodes. We describe our recent work with these devices and conclude by discussing reliability issues.

Compact, solid state, green, blue, and ultraviolet lasers

Solid-state laser sources in the visible and ultraviolet have several advantages over gas laser sources with regard to size, efficiency, lifetime, and amplitude stability. We will discuss the approaches that we have taken to build compact solid-state lasers operating at 532 nm, 430 nm, and 266 nm. We will review the different techniques we use to generate these wavelengths and consequent implications for performance characteristics such as output power, spatial mode, noise, and the possibility for modulation.