Wide aperture semiconductor lasers offer possibilities for space-based communications applications and as pump sources for fiber amplifiers. Broad area devices exhibit weakly turbulent ouputs from the very onset of lasing, thereby degrading device performance. By weakly turbulent, we mean persistent random dynamical bursts of spatially coherent structures within the laser medium. These dynamical filamentation instabilities create local hot-spots and can lead to permanent facet damage. The MFA-MOPA device, for example, was designed to offset the tendency for filamentation instabilities and thereby ensure high brightness operation up to a few Watts CW. Our simulation model [1] discussed below, was instrumental in redesigning the shape of the flare with the prediction of a doubling of the single-mode ouput lower over the conventional linearly expanding flare MFA-MOPA [2]. It has also been used to show that the current modulated MFA_MOPA power amplifier [3].
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