High Peak Power Operation of a 1-μm GaAs-Based Optically Pumped Semiconductor Laser

We report room-temperature high-peak-power operation of an optically pumped semiconductor laser based on the InGaAs/GaAs material system. We present the design of the semiconductor structure and optimization strategies to extract the maximum pulsed peak power. The gain structure was pumped by a 775-nm Alexandrite laser with a pulsewidth adjustable from 400 ns to 1 mu s and a repetition rate of 3 Hz. A new record peak power of 400 W at a wavelength of 1020 nm was obtained with a Gaussian-shaped submicrosecond pulse. An optical-to-optical efficiency of 28% is demonstrated at maximum power. The key parameters limiting the output power are discussed.