Laser diode
Encyclopedia
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...
where the active medium is a semiconductor
Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...
similar to that found in a light-emitting diode
Light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...
. The most common type of laser diode is formed from a p-n junction
P-n junction
A p–n junction is formed at the boundary between a P-type and N-type semiconductor created in a single crystal of semiconductor by doping, for example by ion implantation, diffusion of dopants, or by epitaxy .If two separate pieces of material were used, this would...
and powered by injected electric current
Electric current
Electric current is a flow of electric charge through a medium.This charge is typically carried by moving electrons in a conductor such as wire...
. The former devices are sometimes referred to as injection laser diodes to distinguish them from optically pumped laser diodes.
Theory of operation
A laser diode is formed by doping a very thin layer on the surface of a crystal wafer. The crystal is doped to produce an n-typeN-type semiconductor
N-type semiconductors are a type of extrinsic semiconductor where the dopant atoms are capable of providing extra conduction electrons to the host material . This creates an excess of negative electron charge carriers....
region and a p-type
P-type semiconductor
A P-type semiconductor is obtained by carrying out a process of doping: that is, adding a certain type of atoms to the semiconductor in order to increase the number of free charge carriers ....
region, one above the other, resulting in a p-n junction, or diode
Diode
In electronics, a diode is a type of two-terminal electronic component with a nonlinear current–voltage characteristic. A semiconductor diode, the most common type today, is a crystalline piece of semiconductor material connected to two electrical terminals...
.
Laser diodes form a subset of the larger classification of semiconductor p-n junction diodes. Forward electrical bias across the laser diode causes the two species of charge carrier
Charge carrier
In physics, a charge carrier is a free particle carrying an electric charge, especially the particles that carry electric currents in electrical conductors. Examples are electrons and ions...
– holes
Electron hole
An electron hole is the conceptual and mathematical opposite of an electron, useful in the study of physics, chemistry, and electrical engineering. The concept describes the lack of an electron at a position where one could exist in an atom or atomic lattice...
and electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
s – to be "injected" from opposite sides of the p-n junction into the depletion region. Holes are injected from the p-doped, and electrons from the n-doped, semiconductor. (A depletion region, devoid of any charge carriers, forms as a result of the difference in electrical potential between n- and p-type semiconductors wherever they are in physical contact.) Due to the use of charge injection in powering most diode lasers, this class of lasers is sometimes termed "injection lasers," or "injection laser diode" (ILD). As diode lasers are semiconductor devices, they may also be classified as semiconductor lasers. Either designation distinguishes diode lasers from solid-state laser
Solid-state laser
A solid-state laser is a laser that uses a gain medium that is a solid, rather than a liquid such as in dye lasers or a gas as in gas lasers. Semiconductor-based lasers are also in the solid state, but are generally considered as a separate class from solid-state lasers .-Solid-state...
s.
Another method of powering some diode lasers is the use of optical pumping. Optically Pumped Semiconductor Lasers (OPSL) use a III-V semiconductor chip as the gain media, and another laser (often another diode laser) as the pump source. OPSL offer several advantages over ILDs, particularly in wavelength selection and lack of interference from internal electrode structures.
When an electron and a hole are present in the same region, they may recombine or "annihilate" with the result being spontaneous emission
Spontaneous emission
Spontaneous emission is the process by which a light source such as an atom, molecule, nanocrystal or nucleus in an excited state undergoes a transition to a state with a lower energy, e.g., the ground state and emits a photon...
— i.e., the electron may re-occupy the energy state of the hole, emitting a photon with energy equal to the difference between the electron and hole states involved. (In a conventional semiconductor junction diode, the energy released from the recombination of electrons and holes is carried away as phonon
Phonon
In physics, a phonon is a collective excitation in a periodic, elastic arrangement of atoms or molecules in condensed matter, such as solids and some liquids...
s, i.e., lattice vibrations, rather than as photons.) Spontaneous emission gives the laser diode below lasing threshold
Lasing threshold
The lasing threshold is the lowest excitation level at which a laser's output is dominated by stimulated emission rather than by spontaneous emission. Below the threshold, the laser's output power rises slowly with increasing excitation. Above threshold, the slope of power vs. excitation is orders...
similar properties to an LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
. Spontaneous emission is necessary to initiate laser oscillation, but it is one among several sources of inefficiency once the laser is oscillating.
The difference between the photon-emitting semiconductor laser and conventional phonon-emitting (non-light-emitting) semiconductor junction diodes lies in the use of a different type of semiconductor, one whose physical and atomic structure confers the possibility for photon emission. These photon-emitting semiconductors are the so-called "direct bandgap" semiconductors. The properties of silicon and germanium, which are single-element semiconductors, have bandgaps that do not align in the way needed to allow photon emission and are not considered "direct." Other materials, the so-called compound semiconductors, have virtually identical crystalline structures as silicon or germanium but use alternating arrangements of two different atomic species in a checkerboard-like pattern to break the symmetry. The transition between the materials in the alternating pattern creates the critical "direct bandgap" property. Gallium arsenide, indium phosphide, gallium antimonide, and gallium nitride are all examples of compound semiconductor materials that can be used to create junction diodes that emit light.
Stimulated emission
In optics, stimulated emission is the process by which an atomic electron interacting with an electromagnetic wave of a certain frequency may drop to a lower energy level, transferring its energy to that field. A photon created in this manner has the same phase, frequency, polarization, and...
. This generates another photon of the same frequency, travelling in the same direction, with the same polarization and phase
Phase (waves)
Phase in waves is the fraction of a wave cycle which has elapsed relative to an arbitrary point.-Formula:The phase of an oscillation or wave refers to a sinusoidal function such as the following:...
as the first photon. This means that stimulated emission causes gain in an optical wave (of the correct wavelength) in the injection region, and the gain increases as the number of electrons and holes injected across the junction increases. The spontaneous and stimulated emission processes are vastly more efficient in direct bandgap semiconductors than in indirect bandgap semiconductors; therefore silicon
Silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
is not a common material for laser diodes.
As in other lasers, the gain region is surrounded with an optical cavity
Optical cavity
An optical cavity or optical resonator is an arrangement of mirrors that forms a standing wave cavity resonator for light waves. Optical cavities are a major component of lasers, surrounding the gain medium and providing feedback of the laser light. They are also used in optical parametric...
to form a laser. In the simplest form of laser diode, an optical waveguide is made on that crystal surface, such that the light is confined to a relatively narrow line. The two ends of the crystal are cleaved to form perfectly smooth, parallel edges, forming a Fabry–Pérot resonator. Photons emitted into a mode of the waveguide will travel along the waveguide and be reflected several times from each end face before they are emitted. As a light wave passes through the cavity, it is amplified by stimulated emission
Stimulated emission
In optics, stimulated emission is the process by which an atomic electron interacting with an electromagnetic wave of a certain frequency may drop to a lower energy level, transferring its energy to that field. A photon created in this manner has the same phase, frequency, polarization, and...
, but light is also lost due to absorption and by incomplete reflection from the end facets. Finally, if there is more amplification than loss, the diode begins to "lase
Lasing threshold
The lasing threshold is the lowest excitation level at which a laser's output is dominated by stimulated emission rather than by spontaneous emission. Below the threshold, the laser's output power rises slowly with increasing excitation. Above threshold, the slope of power vs. excitation is orders...
".
Some important properties of laser diodes are determined by the geometry of the optical cavity. Generally, in the vertical direction, the light is contained in a very thin layer, and the structure supports only a single optical mode in the direction perpendicular to the layers. In the transverse direction, if the waveguide is wide compared to the wavelength of light, then the waveguide can support multiple transverse optical modes
Transverse mode
A transverse mode of a beam of electromagnetic radiation is a particular electromagnetic field pattern of radiation measured in a plane perpendicular to the propagation direction of the beam...
, and the laser is known as "multi-mode". These transversely multi-mode lasers are adequate in cases where one needs a very large amount of power, but not a small diffraction-limited beam; for example in printing, activating chemicals, or pumping
Laser pumping
Laser pumping is the act of energy transfer from an external source into the gain medium of a laser. The energy is absorbed in the medium, producing excited states in its atoms. When the number of particles in one excited state exceeds the number of particles in the ground state or a less-excited...
other types of lasers.
In applications where a small focused beam is needed, the waveguide must be made narrow, on the order of the optical wavelength. This way, only a single transverse mode is supported and one ends up with a diffraction-limited beam. Such single spatial mode devices are used for optical storage, laser pointers, and fiber optics. Note that these lasers may still support multiple longitudinal modes, and thus can lase at multiple wavelengths simultaneously.
The wavelength emitted is a function of the band-gap of the semiconductor and the modes of the optical cavity. In general, the maximum gain will occur for photons with energy slightly above the band-gap energy, and the modes nearest the gain peak will lase most strongly. If the diode is driven strongly enough, additional side modes may also lase.
Some laser diodes, such as most visible lasers, operate at a single wavelength, but that wavelength is unstable and changes due to fluctuations in current or temperature.
Due to diffraction
Diffraction
Diffraction refers to various phenomena which occur when a wave encounters an obstacle. Italian scientist Francesco Maria Grimaldi coined the word "diffraction" and was the first to record accurate observations of the phenomenon in 1665...
, the beam diverges (expands) rapidly after leaving the chip, typically at 30 degrees vertically by 10 degrees laterally.
A lens
Lens (optics)
A lens is an optical device with perfect or approximate axial symmetry which transmits and refracts light, converging or diverging the beam. A simple lens consists of a single optical element...
must be used in order to form a collimated beam like that produced by a laser pointer.
If a circular beam is required, cylindrical lenses and other optics are used.
For single spatial mode lasers, using symmetrical lenses, the collimated beam ends up being elliptical in shape, due to the difference in the vertical and lateral divergences. This is easily observable with a red laser pointer
Laser pointer
A laser pointer or laser pen is a small portable device with a power source and a laser emitting a very narrow coherent low-powered beam of visible light, intended to be used to highlight something of interest by illuminating it with a small bright spot of colored light...
.
The simple diode described above has been heavily modified in recent years to accommodate modern technology, resulting in a variety of types of laser diodes, as described below.
Types
The simple laser diode structure, described above, is extremely inefficient. Such devices require so much power that they can only achieve pulsed operation without damage. Although historically important and easy to explain, such devices are not practical.Double heterostructure lasers
Aluminium gallium arsenide
Aluminium gallium arsenide is a semiconductor material with very nearly the same lattice constant as GaAs, but a larger bandgap. The x in the formula above is a number between 0 and 1 - this indicates an arbitrary alloy between GaAs and AlAs.The bandgap varies between 1.42 eV and 2.16 eV...
(AlxGa(1-x)As). Each of the junctions between different bandgap materials is called a heterostructure, hence the name "double heterostructure laser" or DH laser. The kind of laser diode described in the first part of the article may be referred to as a homojunction laser, for contrast with these more popular devices.
The advantage of a DH laser is that the region where free electrons and holes exist simultaneously—the active region
Active laser medium
The active laser medium is the source of optical gain within a laser. The gain results from the stimulated emission of electronic or molecular transitions to a lower energy state from a higher energy state...
—is confined to the thin middle layer. This means that many more of the electron-hole pairs can contribute to amplification—not so many are left out in the poorly amplifying periphery. In addition, light is reflected from the heterojunction; hence, the light is confined to the region where the amplification takes place.
Quantum well lasers
Quantum well
A quantum well is a potential well with only discrete energy values.One technology to create quantization is to confine particles, which were originally free to move in three dimensions, to two dimensions, forcing them to occupy a planar region...
. This means that the vertical variation of the electron's wavefunction
Wavefunction
Not to be confused with the related concept of the Wave equationA wave function or wavefunction is a probability amplitude in quantum mechanics describing the quantum state of a particle and how it behaves. Typically, its values are complex numbers and, for a single particle, it is a function of...
, and thus a component of its energy, is quantized. The efficiency of a quantum well laser
Quantum well laser
A quantum well laser is a laser diode in which the active region of the device is so narrow that quantum confinement occurs. The wavelength of the light emitted by a quantum well laser is determined by the width of the active region rather than just the bandgap of the material from which it is...
is greater than that of a bulk laser because the density of states
Density of states
In solid-state and condensed matter physics, the density of states of a system describes the number of states per interval of energy at each energy level that are available to be occupied by electrons. Unlike isolated systems, like atoms or molecules in gas phase, the density distributions are not...
function of electrons in the quantum well system has an abrupt edge that concentrates electrons in energy states that contribute to laser action.
Lasers containing more than one quantum well layer are known as multiple quantum well lasers. Multiple quantum wells improve the overlap of the gain region with the optical waveguide
Waveguide
A waveguide is a structure which guides waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound waves. There are different types of waveguides for each type of wave...
mode
Normal mode
A normal mode of an oscillating system is a pattern of motion in which all parts of the system move sinusoidally with the same frequency and with a fixed phase relation. The frequencies of the normal modes of a system are known as its natural frequencies or resonant frequencies...
.
Further improvements in the laser efficiency have also been demonstrated by reducing the quantum well layer to a quantum wire
Quantum wire
In condensed matter physics, a quantum wire is an electrically conducting wire, in which quantum effects are affecting transport properties. Due to the quantum confinement of conduction electrons in the transverse direction of the wire, their transverse energy is quantized into a series of...
or to a "sea" of quantum dot
Quantum dot
A quantum dot is a portion of matter whose excitons are confined in all three spatial dimensions. Consequently, such materials have electronic properties intermediate between those of bulk semiconductors and those of discrete molecules. They were discovered at the beginning of the 1980s by Alexei...
s.
Quantum cascade lasers
In a quantum cascade laserQuantum cascade laser
Quantum cascade lasers are semiconductor lasers that emit in the mid- to far-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and were first demonstrated by Jerome Faist, Federico Capasso, Deborah Sivco, Carlo Sirtori, Albert Hutchinson, and Alfred Cho at Bell Laboratories in 1994.Unlike typical...
, the difference between quantum well energy levels is used for the laser transition instead of the bandgap. This enables laser action at relatively long wavelength
Wavelength
In physics, the wavelength of a sinusoidal wave is the spatial period of the wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.It is usually determined by considering the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase, such as crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a...
s, which can be tuned simply by altering the thickness of the layer. They are heterojunction lasers.
Separate confinement heterostructure lasers
Refractive index
In optics the refractive index or index of refraction of a substance or medium is a measure of the speed of light in that medium. It is expressed as a ratio of the speed of light in vacuum relative to that in the considered medium....
than the centre layers, and hence confine the light effectively. Such a design is called a separate confinement heterostructure (SCH) laser diode.
Almost all commercial laser diodes since the 1990s have been SCH quantum well diodes.
Distributed feedback lasers
Distributed feedback laserDistributed feedback laser
A distributed feedback laser is a type of laser diode, quantum cascade laser or optical fibre laser where the active region of the device is periodically structured as a diffraction grating...
s (DFB) are the most common transmitter type in DWDM-systems. To stabilize the lasing wavelength, a diffraction grating is etched close to the p-n junction of the diode. This grating acts like an optical filter, causing a single wavelength to be fed back to the gain region and lase. Since the grating provides the feedback that is required for lasing, reflection from the facets is not required. Thus, at least one facet of a DFB is anti-reflection coated. The DFB laser has a stable wavelength that is set during manufacturing by the pitch of the grating, and can only be tuned slightly with temperature. DFB lasers are widely used in optical communication applications where a precise and stable wavelength is critical.
The threshold current of this DFB laser, based on its static characteristic, is around 11 mA. The appropriate bias current in a linear regime could be taken in the middle of the static characteristic (50 mA).
VCSELs
Dielectric mirror
A dielectric mirror is a type of a mirror composed of multiple thin layers of dielectric material, typically deposited on a substrate of glass or some other optical material. By careful choice of the type and thickness of the dielectric layers, one can design an optical coating with specified...
s made from alternating high and low refractive index quarter-wave thick multilayer.
Such dielectric mirrors provide a high degree of wavelength-selective reflectance at the required free surface wavelength λ if the thicknesses of alternating layers d1 and d2 with refractive indices n1 and n2 are such that n1d1 + n2d2 = λ/2 which then leads to the constructive interference of all partially reflected waves at the interfaces. But there is a disadvantage: because of the high mirror reflectivities, VCSELs have lower output powers when compared to edge-emitting lasers.
There are several advantages to producing VCSELs when compared with the production process of edge-emitting lasers. Edge-emitters cannot be tested until the end of the production process. If the edge-emitter does not work, whether due to bad contacts or poor material growth quality, the production time and the processing materials have been wasted.
Additionally, because VCSELs emit the beam perpendicular to the active region of the laser as opposed to parallel as with an edge emitter, tens of thousands of VCSELs can be processed simultaneously on a three inch Gallium Arsenide wafer. Furthermore, even though the VCSEL production process is more labor and material intensive, the yield can be controlled to a more predictable outcome. However, they normally show a lower power output level.
VECSELs
Vertical external-cavity surface-emitting lasers, or VECSELVECSEL
A vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting-laser is a small semiconductor laser similar to a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser...
s, are similar to VCSELs. In VCSELs, the mirrors are typically grown epitaxially
Epitaxy
Epitaxy refers to the deposition of a crystalline overlayer on a crystalline substrate, where the overlayer is in registry with the substrate. In other words, there must be one or more preferred orientations of the overlayer with respect to the substrate for this to be termed epitaxial growth. The...
as part of the diode structure, or grown separately and bonded directly to the semiconductor containing the active region. VECSELs are distinguished by a construction in which one of the two mirrors is external to the diode structure. As a result, the cavity includes a free-space region. A typical distance from the diode to the external mirror would be 1 cm.
One of the most interesting features of any VECSEL is the small thickness of the semiconductor gain region in the direction of propagation, less than 100 nm. In contrast, a conventional in-plane semiconductor laser entails light propagation over distances of from 250 µm upward to 2 mm or longer. The significance of the short propagation distance is that it causes the effect of "antiguiding" nonlinearities in the diode laser gain region to be minimized. The result is a large-cross-section single-mode optical beam which is not attainable from in-plane ("edge-emitting") diode lasers.
Several workers demonstrated optically pumped VECSELs, and they continue to be developed for many applications including high power sources for use in industrial machining (cutting, punching, etc.) because of their unusually high power and efficiency when pumped by multi-mode diode laser bars.
Electrically pumped VECSELs have also been demonstrated. Applications for electrically pumped VECSELs include projection displays, served by frequency doubling of near-IR VECSEL emitters to produce blue and green light.
External-cavity diode lasers
External-cavity diode lasers are tunable laserTunable laser
A tunable laser is a laser whose wavelength of operation can be altered in a controlled manner. While all laser gain media allow small shifts in output wavelength, only a few types of lasers allow continuous tuning over a significant wavelength range....
s which use mainly double heterostructures diodes of the
AlxGa(1-x)As type. The first external-cavity diode lasers used intracavity
etalons and simple tuning Littrow gratings. Other designs include gratings in grazing-incidence configuration and multiple-prism grating configurations.
Failure modes
Laser diodes have the same reliabilityReliability engineering
Reliability engineering is an engineering field, that deals with the study, evaluation, and life-cycle management of reliability: the ability of a system or component to perform its required functions under stated conditions for a specified period of time. It is often measured as a probability of...
and failure issues as light emitting diodes
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
. In addition they are subject to catastrophic optical damage
Catastrophic optical damage
Catastrophic optical damage , or catastrophic optical mirror damage , is a failure mode of high-power semiconductor lasers. It occurs when the semiconductor junction is overloaded by exceeding its power density and absorbs too much of the produced light energy, leading to melting and...
(COD) when operated at higher power.
Many of the advances in reliability of diode lasers in the last 20 years remain proprietary to their developers. The reliability of a laser diode can make or break a product line. Moreover, reverse engineering
Reverse engineering
Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation...
is not always able to reveal the differences between more-reliable and less-reliable diode laser products.
At the edge of a diode laser, where light is emitted, a mirror is traditionally formed by cleaving
Cleavage (crystal)
Cleavage, in mineralogy, is the tendency of crystalline materials to split along definite crystallographic structural planes. These planes of relative weakness are a result of the regular locations of atoms and ions in the crystal, which create smooth repeating surfaces that are visible both in the...
the semiconductor wafer to form a specularly reflecting plane. This approach is facilitated by the weakness of the [110] crystallographic
Crystallography
Crystallography is the experimental science of the arrangement of atoms in solids. The word "crystallography" derives from the Greek words crystallon = cold drop / frozen drop, with its meaning extending to all solids with some degree of transparency, and grapho = write.Before the development of...
plane in III-V semiconductor crystals (such as GaAs
Gaas
Gaas is a commune in the Landes department in Aquitaine in south-western France....
, InP
Indium(III) phosphide
Indium phosphide is a binary semiconductor composed of indium and phosphorus. It has a face-centered cubic crystal structure, identical to that of GaAs and most of the III-V semiconductors....
, GaSb
Gallium(II) antimonide
Gallium antimonide is a semiconducting compound of gallium and antimony of the III-V family. It has a lattice constant of about 0.61 nm.-Applications:...
, etc.) compared to other planes. A scratch made at the edge of the wafer and a slight bending force causes a nearly atomically perfect mirror-like cleavage plane to form and propagate in a straight line across the wafer.
But it so happens that the atomic states at the cleavage plane are altered (compared to their bulk properties within the crystal) by the termination of the perfectly periodic lattice at that plane. Surface states
Surface states
Surface states are electronic states found at the surface of materials. They are formed due to the sharp transition from solid material that ends with a surface and are found only at the atom layers closest to the surface. The termination of a material with a surface leads to a change of the...
at the cleaved plane, have energy levels within the (otherwise forbidden) bandgap of the semiconductor.
Essentially, as a result when light propagates through the cleavage plane and transits to free space from within the semiconductor crystal, a fraction of the light energy is absorbed by the surface states whence it is converted to heat by phonon
Phonon
In physics, a phonon is a collective excitation in a periodic, elastic arrangement of atoms or molecules in condensed matter, such as solids and some liquids...
-electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
interactions. This heats the cleaved mirror. In addition the mirror may heat simply because the edge of the diode laser—which is electrically pumped—is in less-than-perfect contact with the mount that provides a path for heat removal. The heating of the mirror causes the bandgap of the semiconductor to shrink in the warmer areas. The bandgap shrinkage brings more electronic band-to-band transitions into alignment with the photon energy causing yet more absorption. This is thermal runaway
Thermal runaway
Thermal runaway refers to a situation where an increase in temperature changes the conditions in a way that causes a further increase in temperature, often leading to a destructive result...
, a form of positive feedback
Positive feedback
Positive feedback is a process in which the effects of a small disturbance on a system include an increase in the magnitude of the perturbation. That is, A produces more of B which in turn produces more of A. In contrast, a system that responds to a perturbation in a way that reduces its effect is...
, and the result can be melting of the facet, known as catastrophic optical damage, or COD.
In the 1970s this problem, which is particularly nettlesome for GaAs-based lasers emitting between 1 µm and 0.630 µm wavelengths (less so for InP based lasers used for long-haul telecommunications which emit between 1.3 µm and 2 µm), was identified. Michael Ettenberg, a researcher and later Vice President at RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
Laboratories' David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
, devised a solution. A thin layer of aluminum oxide was deposited on the facet. If the aluminum oxide thickness is chosen correctly it functions as an anti-reflective coating
Anti-reflective coating
An antireflective or anti-reflection coating is a type of optical coating applied to the surface of lenses and other optical devices to reduce reflection. This improves the efficiency of the system since less light is lost. In complex systems such as a telescope, the reduction in reflections also...
, reducing reflection at the surface. This alleviated the heating and COD at the facet.
Since then, various other refinements have been employed. One approach is to create a so-called non-absorbing mirror (NAM) such that the final 10 µm or so before the light emits from the cleaved facet are rendered non-absorbing at the wavelength of interest.
In the very early 1990s, SDL, Inc. began supplying high power diode lasers with good reliability characteristics. CEO Donald Scifres and CTO David Welch presented new reliability performance data at, e.g., SPIE
The International Society for Optical Engineering
SPIE, an international society for optics, photonics, and imaging engineering, advances an interdisciplinary approach to the science and application of light....
Photonics West conferences of the era. The methods used by SDL to defeat COD were considered to be highly proprietary and were still undisclosed publicly as of June 2006.
In the mid-1990s IBM Research (Ruschlikon, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
) announced that it had devised its so-called "E2 process" which conferred extraordinary resistance to COD in GaAs-based lasers. This process, too, was undisclosed as of June 2006.
Reliability of high-power diode laser pump bars (used to pump solid-state lasers) remains a difficult problem in a variety of applications, in spite of these proprietary advances. Indeed, the physics of diode laser failure is still being worked out and research on this subject remains active, if proprietary.
Extension of the lifetime of laser diodes is critical to their continued adaptation to a wide variety of applications.
Uses
as compared to 131,000 of other types of lasers.
Laser diodes find wide use in telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
as easily modulated and easily coupled light sources for fiber optics
Optical fiber
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...
communication. They are used in various measuring instruments, such as rangefinder
Rangefinder
A rangefinder is a device that measures distance from the observer to a target, for the purposes of surveying, determining focus in photography, or accurately aiming a weapon. Some devices use active methods to measure ; others measure distance using trigonometry...
s. Another common use is in barcode reader
Barcode reader
A barcode reader is an electronic device for reading printed barcodes. Like a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light source, a lens and a light sensor translating optical impulses into electrical ones...
s. Visible
Visible spectrum
The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called visible light or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 390 to 750 nm. In terms of...
lasers, typically red
Red
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
but later also green
Green
Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...
, are common as laser pointer
Laser pointer
A laser pointer or laser pen is a small portable device with a power source and a laser emitting a very narrow coherent low-powered beam of visible light, intended to be used to highlight something of interest by illuminating it with a small bright spot of colored light...
s. Both low and high-power diodes are used extensively in the printing industry both as light sources for scanning (input) of images and for very high-speed and high-resolution printing plate (output) manufacturing. Infrared
Infrared
Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...
and red laser diodes are common in CD players
Compact disc player
A Compact Disc player , or CD player, is an electronic device that plays audio Compact Discs. CD players are often a part of home stereo systems, car audio systems, and personal computers. They are also manufactured as portable devices...
, CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
s and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
technology. Violet
Violet (color)
As the name of a color, violet is synonymous with a bluish purple, when the word "purple" is used in the common English language sense of any color between blue and red, not including either blue or red...
lasers are used in HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
technology. Diode lasers have also found many applications in laser absorption spectrometry
Laser absorption spectrometry
Laser absorption spectrometry refers to techniques that use lasers to assess the concentration or amount of a species in gas phase by absorption spectrometry ....
(LAS) for high-speed, low-cost assessment or monitoring of the concentration of various species in gas phase. High-power laser diodes are used in industrial applications such as heat treating, cladding, seam welding and for pumping other lasers, such as diode-pumped solid-state lasers.
Uses of laser diodes can be categorized in various ways. Most applications could be served by larger solid-state lasers or optical parametric oscillators, but the low cost of mass-produced diode lasers makes them essential for mass-market applications. Diode lasers can be used in a great many fields; since light has many different properties (power, wavelength, spectral and beam quality, polarization, etc.) it is useful to classify applications by these basic properties.
Many applications of diode lasers primarily make use of the "directed energy" property of an optical beam. In this category one might include the laser printer
Laser printer
A laser printer is a common type of computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper. As with digital photocopiers and multifunction printers , laser printers employ a xerographic printing process, but differ from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced...
s, barcode readers, image scanning, illuminators, designators, optical data recording, combustion ignition, laser surgery
Laser surgery
Laser surgery is surgery using a laser to cut tissue instead of a scalpel. Examples include the use of a laser scalpel in otherwise conventional surgery, and soft tissue laser surgery, in which the laser beam vaporizes soft tissue with high water content...
, industrial sorting, industrial machining, and directed energy weaponry. Some of these applications are well-established while others are emerging.
Laser medicine
Laser medicine
Laser medicine is the use of various types of lasers in medical diagnosis, treatment, or therapy. Types of lasers used in medicine include in principle any laser design, especially:* CO2 lasers* diode lasers* dye lasers* excimer lasers* fiber lasers...
: medicine and especially dentistry have found many new uses for diode lasers. The shrinking size of the units and their increasing user friendliness makes them very attractive to clinicians for minor soft tissue procedures. The 800 nm – 980 nm units have a high absorption rate for hemoglobin and thus make them ideal for soft tissue applications, where good hemostasis
Hemostasis
Hemostasis or haemostasis is a process which causes bleeding to stop, meaning to keep blood within a damaged blood vessel . Most of the time this includes blood changing from a liquid to a solid state. Intact blood vessels are central to moderating blood's tendency to clot...
is necessary.
Uses which may make use of the coherence
Coherence (physics)
In physics, coherence is a property of waves that enables stationary interference. More generally, coherence describes all properties of the correlation between physical quantities of a wave....
of diode-laser-generated light include interferometric distance measurement, holography, coherent communications, and coherent control of chemical reactions.
Uses which may make use of "narrow spectral" properties of diode lasers include
range-finding, telecommunications, infra-red countermeasures, spectroscopic sensing, generation of radio-frequency or terahertz waves, atomic clock state preparation, quantum key cryptography, frequency doubling and conversion, water purification (in the UV), and photodynamic therapy (where a particular wavelength of light would cause a substance such as porphyrin
Porphyrin
Porphyrins are a group of organic compounds, many naturally occurring. One of the best-known porphyrins is heme, the pigment in red blood cells; heme is a cofactor of the protein hemoglobin. Porphyrins are heterocyclic macrocycles composed of four modified pyrrole subunits interconnected at...
to become chemically active as an anti-cancer agent only where the tissue is illuminated by light).
Uses where the desired quality of laser diodes is their ability to generate ultra-short pulses of light by the technique known as "mode-locking" include clock distribution for high-performance integrated circuits, high-peak-power sources for laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy sensing, arbitrary waveform generation for radio-frequency waves, photonic sampling for analog-to-digital conversion, and optical code-division-multiple-access systems for secure communication.
Common wavelengths
- 375 nm – excitation of Hoechst stainHoechst stainHoechst stains are part of a family of blue fluorescent dyes used to stain DNA. These Bis-benzimides were originally developed by the Hoechst AG, which numbered all their compounds so that the dye Hoechst 33342 is the 33342nd compound made by the company. There are three related Hoechst stains:...
, Calcium Blue, and other fluorescent dyes in fluorescence microscopy - 405 nm – InGaNInganIngan is a village in the Punjab province of Pakistan....
blue-violet laser, in Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
and HD DVDHD DVDHD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
drives - 445 nm – InGaNInganIngan is a village in the Punjab province of Pakistan....
Deep blue laser multimode diode recently introduced (2010) for use in mercury free high brightness data projectors - 473 nm – Bright blue laser pointers, still very expensive, output of DPSS systems
- 485 nm – excitation of GFPGreen fluorescent proteinThe green fluorescent protein is a protein composed of 238 amino acid residues that exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to blue light. Although many other marine organisms have similar green fluorescent proteins, GFP traditionally refers to the protein first isolated from the...
and other fluorescent dyes - 510 nm - Green diodes recently (2010) developed by Nichia for laser projectors.
- 635 nm – AlGaInP better red laser pointers, same power subjectively 5 times as bright as 670 nm one
- 640 nm – High brightness red DPSS laser pointers
- 657 nm – AlGaInP DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
drives, laser pointers - 670 nm – AlGaInP cheap red laser pointerLaser pointerA laser pointer or laser pen is a small portable device with a power source and a laser emitting a very narrow coherent low-powered beam of visible light, intended to be used to highlight something of interest by illuminating it with a small bright spot of colored light...
s - 760 nm – AlGaInP gas sensing:
- 785 nm – GaAlAs Compact DiscCompact DiscThe Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
drives - 808 nm – GaAlAs pumpsLaser pumpingLaser pumping is the act of energy transfer from an external source into the gain medium of a laser. The energy is absorbed in the medium, producing excited states in its atoms. When the number of particles in one excited state exceeds the number of particles in the ground state or a less-excited...
in DPSS Nd:YAG laserNd:YAG laserNd:YAG is a crystal that is used as a lasing medium for solid-state lasers. The dopant, triply ionized neodymium, typically replaces yttrium in the crystal structure of the yttrium aluminium garnet , since they are of similar size...
s (e.g. in green laser pointers or as arrays in higher-powered lasers) - 848 nm – laser miceMouse (computing)In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...
- 980 nm – InGaAs pump for optical amplifierOptical amplifierAn optical amplifier is a device that amplifies an optical signal directly, without the need to first convert it to an electrical signal. An optical amplifier may be thought of as a laser without an optical cavity, or one in which feedback from the cavity is suppressed...
s, for Yb:YAG DPSS lasers - 1064 nm – AlGaAs fiber-optic communication, DPSS laser pump frequency
- 1310 nm – InGaAsP, InGaAsN fiber-optic communication
- 1480 nm – InGaAsP pump for optical amplifiers
- 1512 nm – InGaAsP gas sensing:
- 1550 nm – InGaAsP, InGaAsNSb fiber-optic communication
- 1625 nm – InGaAsP fiber-optic communication, service channel
- 1654 nm – InGaAsP gas sensing:
- 1877 nm – GaSbAs gas sensing:
- 2004 nm – GaSbAs gas sensing:
- 2330 nm – GaSbAs gas sensing:
- 2680 nm – GaSbAs gas sensing:
History
CoherentCoherence (physics)
In physics, coherence is a property of waves that enables stationary interference. More generally, coherence describes all properties of the correlation between physical quantities of a wave....
light emission from a semiconductor (gallium arsenide) diode (the first laser diode) was demonstrated in 1962 by two US groups led by Robert N. Hall
Robert N. Hall
Robert N. Hall is an American engineer and applied physicist. He demonstrated the first semiconductor laser, and invented a type of magnetron commonly used in microwave ovens. He also contributed to the development of rectifiers for power transmission.-Biography:Hall was born in New Haven,...
at the General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
research center and by Marshall Nathan at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. The priority is given to General Electric group who have obtained and submitted their results earlier; they also went further and made a resonant cavity for their diode. The first visible wavelength laser diode was demonstrated by Nick Holonyak, Jr. later in 1962.
Other teams at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
, and RCA Laboratories were also involved in and received credit for their historic initial demonstrations of efficient light emission and lasing in semiconductor diodes in 1962 and thereafter. GaAs lasers were also produced in early 1963 in the Soviet Union by the team led by Nikolay Basov
Nikolay Basov
Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov was a Soviet physicist and educator. For his fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics that led to the development of laser and maser, Basov shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Alexander Prokhorov and Charles Hard Townes.-Early life:Basov was born in...
.
In the early 1960s liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) was invented by Herbert Nelson of RCA Laboratories. By layering the highest quality crystals of varying compositions, it enabled the demonstration of the highest quality heterojunction semiconductor laser materials for many years. LPE was adopted by all the leading laboratories, worldwide and used for many years. It was finally supplanted in the 1970s by molecular beam epitaxy and organometallic chemical vapor deposition
Chemical vapor deposition
Chemical vapor deposition is a chemical process used to produce high-purity, high-performance solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In a typical CVD process, the wafer is exposed to one or more volatile precursors, which react and/or...
.
Diode lasers of that era operated with threshold current densities of 1000 A/cm2 at 77 K temperatures. Such performance enabled continuous-lasing to be demonstrated in the earliest days. However, when operated at room temperature, about 300 K, threshold current densities were two orders of magnitude greater, or 100,000 A/cm2 in the best devices. The dominant challenge for the remainder of the 1960s was to obtain low threshold current density at 300 K and thereby to demonstrate continuous-wave lasing at room temperature from a diode laser.
The first diode lasers were homojunction diodes. That is, the material (and thus the bandgap) of the waveguide core layer and that of the surrounding clad layers, were identical. It was recognized that there was an opportunity, particularly afforded by the use of liquid phase epitaxy using aluminum gallium arsenide, to introduce heterojunctions. Heterostructures consist of layers of semiconductor crystal having varying bandgap and refractive index. Heterojunctions (formed from heterostructures) had been recognized by Herbert Kroemer
Herbert Kroemer
Herbert Kroemer , a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1952 from the University of Göttingen, Germany, with a dissertation on hot electron effects in the then-new transistor, setting the stage...
, while working at RCA Laboratories in the mid-1950s, as having unique advantages for several types of electronic and optoelectronic devices including diode lasers. LPE afforded the technology of making heterojunction diode lasers.
The first heterojunction diode lasers were single-heterojunction lasers. These lasers utilized aluminum gallium arsenide p-type injectors situated over n-type gallium arsenide layers grown on the substrate by LPE. An admixture of aluminum replaced gallium in the semiconductor crystal and raised the bandgap of the p-type injector over that of the n-type layers beneath. It worked; the 300 K threshold currents went down by 10× to 10,000 amperes per square centimeter. Unfortunately, this was still not in the needed range and these single-heterostructure diode lasers did not function in continuous wave operation at room temperature.
The innovation that met the room temperature challenge was the double heterostructure laser. The trick was to quickly move the wafer in the LPE apparatus between different "melts" of aluminum gallium arsenide (p- and n-type) and a third melt of gallium arsenide. It had to be done rapidly since the gallium arsenide core region needed to be significantly under 1 µm in thickness. This may have been the earliest true example of "nanotechnology." The first laser diode to achieve continuous wave
Continuous wave
A continuous wave or continuous waveform is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency; and in mathematical analysis, of infinite duration. Continuous wave is also the name given to an early method of radio transmission, in which a carrier wave is switched on and off...
operation was a double heterostructure
Double heterostructure
A double heterostructure is formed when two semiconductor materials are grown in to a "sandwich". One material is used for the outer layers , and another of smaller band gap is used for the inner layer. In our example, there are two AlGaAs-GaAs junctions at each side of the inner layer...
demonstrated in 1970 essentially simultaneously by Zhores Alferov and collaborators (including Dmitri Z. Garbuzov
Dmitri Z. Garbuzov
Dmitri Z. Garbuzov was one of the pioneers and inventors of room temperature continuous-wave-operating diode lasers and high-power diode lasers....
) of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and Morton Panish and Izuo Hayashi
Izuo Hayashi
' was a Japanese physicist.Hayashi was born in Tokyo in 1922 and graduated from the Department of Physics, University of Tokyo in 1946. He then worked as assistant professor at the Institute for Nuclear Research of the same university and defended his PhD in 1962...
working in the United States. However, it is widely accepted that Zhores I. Alferov and team reached the milestone first.
For their accomplishment and that of their co-workers, Alferov and Kroemer shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics.
See also
- Laser diode rate equationsLaser diode rate equationsThe laser diode rate equations model the electrical and optical performance of a laser diode. This system of ordinary differential equations relates the number or density of photons and charge carriers in the device to the injection current and to device and material parameters such as carrier...
- Laser safetyLaser safetyLaser safety is safe design, use and implementation of lasers to minimize the risk of laser accidents, especially those involving eye injuries. Since even relatively small amounts of laser light can lead to permanent eye injuries, the sale and usage of lasers is typically subject to government...
- Collimating lens
- Superluminescent diodeSuperluminescent diodeA superluminescent diode is an edge-emitting semiconductor light source based on superluminescence. It combines the high power and brightness of laser diodes with the low coherence of conventional light-emitting diodes. Its emission band is 5–100 nm wide.- History :In 1986 Dr. Gerard A...
- Millstone River PhotonickersMillstone River PhotonickersMillstone River Photonickers is an informal affinity association of those individuals associated with the development of semiconductor diode laser technology at RCA Laboratories and its successor organization Sarnoff Corporation, as well as companies and government or university groups which have...
Further reading
- B. Van Zeghbroeck's Principles of Semiconductor Devices( for direct and indirect band gaps)
- Saleh, Bahaa E. A. and Teich, Malvin Carl (1991). Fundamentals of Photonics. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-83965-5. ( For Stimulated Emission )
- Koyama et al., Fumio (1988), "Room temperature cw operation of GaAs vertical cavity surface emitting laser", Trans. IEICE, E71(11): 1089–1090( for VCSELS)
- Iga, Kenichi (2000), "Surface-emitting laser—Its birth and generation of new optoelectronics field", IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics 6(6): 1201–1215(for VECSELS)
- Duarte, F. J.F. J. DuarteF. J. Duarte is a laser physicist and author/editor of several well-known books on tunable lasers. He introduced the generalized multiple-prism dispersion theory and has discovered various multiple-prism grating oscillator laser configurations...
(2009), "Broadly tunable dispersive external-cavity semiconductor lasers", in Tunable Laser Applications. New York: CRC Press. ISBN 1-4200-6009-0. pp. 143–177. (For external cavity diode lasers)
External links
- Sam's Laser FAQ by Samuel M. Goldwasser
- Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics Edge-emitting lasers
- Application and technical notes explaining current and temperature control of laser diodes