Photonic crystal spatial filtering in broad aperture diode laser

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that integrating compact Photonic Crystal spatial filters into broad aperture diode lasers enhances beam quality and brightness, overcoming limitations of conventional intra-cavity filtering.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel intra-cavity Photonic Crystal spatial filtering technique for broad aperture diode lasers, significantly improving beam quality and brightness.

Findings

M2 reduced from 47 to 28

Brightness increased by a factor of 1.5

Proof of principle for intra-cavity filtering

Abstract

Broad aperture semiconductor lasers usually suffer from low spatial quality of the emitted beams. Due to the highly compact character of such lasers the use of a conventional intra-cavity spatial filters is problematic. We demonstrate that extremely compact Photonic Crystal spatial filters, incorporated into the laser resonator, can improve the beam spatial quality, and correspondingly, increase the brightness of the emitted radiation. We report the decrease of the M2 from 47 down to 28 due to Photonic Crystal spatial intra-cavity filtering, and the increase of the brightness by a factor of 1.5, giving a proof of principle of intra-cavity Photonic Crystal spatial filtering in broad area semiconductor lasers.