Pumping solid state lasers in LCTs requires the application of highly reliable, low-noise semiconductor lasers. Two design variants of pump lasers have been developed and tested. The first design consists of broad area laser arrays, spectrally stabilized by an external Bragg grating. Those lasers exhibit decent reliability and thus they are utilized in various space missions. The drawback of that design is due to hardly controllable intensity noise at certain operating conditions induced by optical feedback. To overcome this drawback, DBR RW arrays with monolithically integrated Bragg grating have been optimized aimed at low noise performance and high reliability over an extended operating time. Life test results indicate that the reliability goal can be achieved by careful preselection of the devices and eventually by increasing the number of active emitters.

Date Published: 4 March 2019
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 10910, Free-Space Laser Communications XXXI, 109100N (4 March 2019); doi: 10.1117/12.2511232

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10910:
Free-Space Laser Communications XXXI
Hamid Hemmati; Don M. Boroson, Editor(s)