Emulation and By-Emitter Degradation Analysis of High Power Lasers

The characterisation, emulation and by-emitter degradation analysis of two types of high power semiconductor laser diodes are presented in this work. An attempt is made using an accurate laser simulator called Speclase to learn more about the degradation of high power semiconductor laser diodes. Speclase being a single emitter simulation tool was transformed to model a bar i.e. multiple emitters, which we have named Barlase. The concept of Barlase was based on the fact that a bar is a monolithic block of multiple emitters connected in parallel with each other with a common voltage connected across them. The tool is designed to examine and emulate the degradation processes at both the laser bar and individual emitter levels of operation. Emitters are known to degrade faster within a bar than for identical single emitters due to a combination of packaging-induced strain and current competition. The bar emulation model was enhanced by including a global thermal solver to model the thermal crosstalk between emitters but the frown shaped temperature profile was minimal. This work is still at a very early stage and therefore, further work is needed to achieve better results.