IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 19, NO.

4, JULY/AUGUST 2013

1502104

High-Efficient and Reliable Broad-Area Laser

Diodes With a Window Structure
Takenori Morita, Member, IEEE, Takehito Nagakura, Kousuke Torii, Motoki Takauji, Junya Maeda,
Masahiro Miyamoto, Hirofumi Miyajima, and Harumasa Yoshida, Member, IEEE

AbstractWe report on high-power 915-nm broad-area laser

diodes with a window structure formed by a impurity-free vacancy
disordering method. A maximum conversion efficiency of 68% and
high output power of 19.8 W have been achieved at 20 C. A stable
operation over 2000 h has also been confirmed under the condition
of an output power of 15 W at 25 C. Far-field patterns suggest
that the laser diode is suitable for coupling into an optical fiber
with 105-m core diameter and 0.15 numerical aperture.
Index TermsFiber lasers, power lasers, pump lasers, reliability, semiconductor lasers.

I. INTRODUCTION
ECENTLY, high-power broad-area laser diodes in a 9xxnm spectral range have attracted much attention as pumping sources for fiber lasers [1]. For a kilowatt-class fiber laser,
hundreds of fiber-coupled laser diode modules are incorporated
into the system. In general, 915-nm broad-area laser diodes with
stripe widths ranging from 90 to 100 m are coupled into an
optical fiber with a core diameter of 105 m and 0.15 numerical aperture (NA) for pump modules [2][4]. This application
requires high output power and high electrical-to-optical power
conversion efficiency of the laser diodes. Increase of output
power from a single laser diode directly leads to decrease of
the number of devices in the system and the component cost.
Furthermore, improved efficiency enables to reduce the cooling
cost as well as the junction temperature of devices, which relates
the device reliability.
A major issue with high-power laser diode is catastrophic
optical mirror damage (COMD), which is caused by the facet
heating due to optical absorption [5]. So far, various techniques
to suppress COMD have been studied and developed. One way
to suppress COMD is to reduce optical density at facet. For
example, a large optical cavity (LOC) structure realizes this
situation by expanding thickness of a guiding layer. Xu et al.
reported the maximum output power of 23 W from 915-nm
laser diodes with a novel LOC structure [6]. However, the power

Manuscript received October 31, 2012; revised January 22, 2013; accepted
January 29, 2013.This work was supported in part by New Energy and Industrial
Technology Development Organization of Japan.
The authors are with Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu 434-8601,
Japan (e-mail: take-m@crl.hpk.co.jp; takehito@crl.hpk.co.jp; torii-k@crl.hpk.
co.jp; takauji@lsr.hpk.co.jp; junmaeda@crl.hpk.co.jp; miyamoto@crl.hpk.co.
jp; miyajima@lsr.hpk.co.jp; harumasa@crl.hpk.co.jp).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSTQE.2013.2245103

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a 915-nm broad-area laser diode with a window

structure.

for reliable operation and the maximum conversion efficiency

under continuous wave (CW) operation were limited up to 8 W
and 65%, respectively. Another method to suppress COMD is
introduction of window region at the facets. The bandgap energy
in the window region is controlled to be larger than that in the
gain region, and optical absorption near the facets are effectively
reduced. So far, two major methods for forming the window
structure have been developed, the one is epitaxial regrowth
[7], the other is quantum-well intermixing (QWI). Since QWI
features relatively simple method of a postgrowth technique, the
layer structure for high efficiency and the window structure for
suppressing COMD can be optimized individually. The QWI
provides the feasible design of layer structure for realization of
high-power and high-efficiency laser diodes.
The QWI can be achieved by various methods, such as
impurity-induced disordering [8], ion irradiation-induced intermixing [9], and impurity-free vacancy disordering (IFVD)
[10][15]. Among them, IFVD is considered to be the most
promising technique because it retains crystalline quality and
low optical propagation losses. There have been several reports
on high-power 915-nm laser diodes successfully fabricated by
IFVD [13][15]. However, the output powers of these devices
were limited to no more than 8 W under reliable operation.
In this paper, we report on high-efficient and reliable 915-nm
broad-area laser diodes with a window structure by the IFVD
method. A reliable 15 W operation and a maximum conversion
efficiency of 68% have been achieved.
II. DEVICE FABRICATION
The schematic illustration of the 915-nm broad-area laser
diode with a window structure is shown in Fig. 1. The

1077-260X/$31.00 2013 IEEE

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IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, JULY/AUGUST 2013

Fig. 3.
Fig. 2.

Power and efficiency characteristics under CW operation at 20 C.

Normalized PL spectra from the window and gain regions of the device.

epitaxial layers composed of an n-AlGaAs cladding layer, an

n-AlGaAs guiding layer, a low Al-composition AlGaAs layer,
an AlInGaAs active layer, a low Al-composition AlGaAs layer,
a p-AlGaAs guiding layer, a p-AlGaAs cladding layer, and a
p-GaAs cap layer were grown on an n-GaAs substrate by metal
organic vapor phase epitaxy. In general, the carrier leakage from
an active layer increases with increasing injection current, and
results in the thermal rollover of output power at high injection current. The low Al-composition AlGaAs layers between
guiding layers and active layer provide effective carrier capture
into the quantum well, and suppress the carrier leakage [16].
The stripe width and the cavity length were 100 m and 4 mm,
respectively. The front and rear facets were coated to be antiand high reflective, respectively. For the purpose of suppressing COMD, the window regions are formed at both facets. The
devices were soldered on AlN submounts in a junction-down
configuration with a AuSn solder, and mounted on Cu heat
sinks.
III. WINDOW STRUCTURE
In the IFVD process, a dielectric cap layer is typically deposited on top of quantum-well structures, followed by a thermal annealing. During annealing, Ga atoms in the epitaxial
layers diffuse into a cap layer, leaving behind vacancies. By the
vacancy diffusion into the active region, the compositional intermixing between well and barrier layers has been performed.
In order to apply IFVD to form a window structure, it is necessary to use two different types of dielectric films, of which one
enhances QWI for window region and the other suppresses it for
gain region. To date, various dielectric films and their deposition
techniques have been studied [17][19]. In this paper, we have
also employed two types of films by plasma-enhanced chemical
vapor deposition. The property and thickness of each film and
the thermal annealing condition have been optimized to maintain well-balanced characteristics between the QWI enhancing
and suppressing films. For the device fabrication, the thermal

annealing was performed at lower temperature compared to that

of the other group [13][15]. Fig. 2 shows the normalized photoluminescence (PL) spectra from window and gain regions of the
device. The degree of QWI can be estimated by the comparison
of the PL peak energy between the post-QWI sample and the asgrown one. The PL peak energy from the gain region was almost
the same as that of the as-grown sample (data not shown). A
large bandgap energy difference of 59 meV has been observed
between the window and gain regions despite low annealing
temperature. In addition, the full-width at half-maximum of the
PL spectra from both regions remained as small as the as-grown
sample, which suggests that the quality of the epitaxial layer
has been maintained after the process. The PL measurement
revealed that the windows have been successfully formed with
an adequate transparency to the 915-nm laser emission.
IV. DEVICE CHARACTERISTICS
Fig. 3 shows typical output power and efficiency characteristics of the device measured at a heat sink temperature of 20 C
under CW operation. A high slope efficiency of 1.15 W/A and
a low threshold current of 0.6 A lead to high conversion efficiency. The power conversion efficiency reached its maximum
of 68% at an output power of 6.3 W. It remains high even at
higher output power and is above 61% at 15 W. A maximum
output power of 19.8 W has also been achieved at a current
of 21.5 A. The devices exhibited no COMD failure during the
initial characterization.
The far-field patterns at an output power of 15 W at 25 C are
shown in Fig. 4. The full-width at half-maximum in the fast and
slow axis directions are 25 and 12 , respectively. The full width
for 95% power inclusion in the fast and slow axis directions
are 49 and 13.5 , respectively. For high coupling efficiency
to a 105-m-0.15NA fiber, the slow axis divergence should be
as low as the NA of the fiber. Theoretically, the acceptable
angle of the 0.15NA fiber is estimated to be 17.2 . The slow
axis divergence of 13.5 for 95% power inclusion is less than
the acceptable angle of the 0.15NA fiber, which allows highly
efficient coupling.

MORITA et al.: HIGH-EFFICIENT AND RELIABLE BROAD-AREA LASER DIODES WITH A WINDOW STRUCTURE

1502104

at an output power of 15 W at 25 C has been achieved by

optimizing the epitaxial structure and the IFVD procedure. A
maximum conversion efficiency and output power at 20 C are
68% and 19.8 W, respectively. The devices also shows a narrow
horizontal far-field divergence of 13.5 for 95% power inclusion at an output power of 15 W, which allows highly efficient
coupling with 0.15NA fibers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Mr. T. Washiyama and Mr.
H. Aoshima for their technical support.
REFERENCES

Fig. 4. Far-field patterns in the fast axis (perpendicular to the junction plane)
direction and the slow axis (parallel to the junction plane) direction at an output
power of 15 W at 25 C.

Fig. 5. Life-test results of 15 devices with a window structure at 15.8 A,

corresponding output power of about 15 W at 25 C under CW operation.

To confirm the reliability of the lasers, the life test has been
carried out for the devices with and without a window structure
under constant current operation at 25 C. The initial output
power of each test device was set to be 15 W. The devices without a window structure have failed within several hours due to
COMD. In contrast, any COMD failure or gradual degradation
has never been observed on the devices with a window structure
over 2000 h as shown in Fig. 5. These results show that the
optimized epitaxial structure and the window structure drastically improve the reliability under high-power operation. The
reliable output power of 15 W confirmed by the test is the highest of 915-nm broad-area lasers with a window structure ever
reported [13][15]. Lower annealing temperature would be one
of the reasons of better reliability of our device. A mean time to
failure with 60% one-sided confidence limit can be estimated to
be over 32 600 h, based on the equation for zero failure presented
in [20]; the total device hours divided by 0.92.
V. CONCLUSION
We have developed 915-nm broad-area laser diodes with a
window structure using IFVD. A stable operation over 2000 h

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Takenori Morita (M12) received the B.E. degree in

electrical and electronics engineering from the Tokyo
Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1993.
He joined Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan, in 1993, where he has been engaged
in the research and development of laser diodes. His
current research interests include high-power 9xx-nm
single-emitter laser diodes and laser diode bars.

Takehito Nagakura received the M.E. degree in materials science and engineering from the Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya, Japan, in 1999.
He joined Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan, in 1999, where he has been engaged
in the research and development of laser diodes. His
current research interests include high-power 9xx-nm
single-emitter laser diodes and laser diode bars.

Kousuke Torii received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and electronics engineering from
Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in 1999 and 2001,
respectively.
He was a Postdoctoral Fellow with Tokyo University, Tokyo, before joining Hamamatsu Photonics
K.K., Hamamatsu, Hamamatsu, Japan, and was engaged in research on the optical properties of quantum
dots. His current research interests include computer
simulation of semiconductor lasers.

Motoki Takauji received the M.S. degree from the

Institute of Applied Physics, University of Tsukuba,
Ibaraki, Japan, in 2005.
He joined Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan, in 2005, where he has been engaged
in the research and development of laser diodes. His
current research interests include crystal growth of
high-power laser diodes.

Junya Maeda received the M.S. degree in electrical

and electronics engineering from the Toyohashi University of Technology, Toyohashi, Japan, in 1995, and
the Ph.D. degree in metallurgy from the University
of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 2000.
He is with Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan. His current research interests include
materials and photonics science.

Masahiro Miyamoto received the B.E. degree in

electronics engineering from the Osaka Institute of
Technology, Osaka, Japan, in 1995.
He was a Technical Assistant with the Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka,
before joining Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan, in 1996, where he has been engaged
in the research and development of laser diodes. His
current research interests include high-power 9xx-nm
vertical cavity surface-emitting laser devices.

Hirofumi Miyajima received the M.S. degree in

electrical and electronics engineering from Gifu University, Gifu, Japan, in 1991, and the Ph.D. degree in
electronics engineering from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, in 2005.
He joined Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan, in 1991, and was engaged in research
and development of laser diodes. He is currently engaged in the manufacturing of laser diode devices.

Harumasa Yoshida (M12) received the B.S. degree

in electrical engineering, the M.S. degree in electrical
and electronics engineering, and the Ph.D. degree in
materials science from Mie University, Mie, Japan,
in 1980, 1982, and 2003, respectively.
He joined Brother Industries, Ltd., Nagoya, Japan,
in 1982, where he was engaged in the research and
development of robotics devices. In 1985, he joined
Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu, Japan, and
was engaged in research and development of photonic
devices and their applications. Since 2004, he has
been involved in the research on nitride material and development of ultraviolet
laser diodes. He is currently leading a research and development section of laser
devices.
Dr. Yoshida is a member of the Japan Society of Applied Physics and the
International Society for Optics and Photonics.