BROAD AREA LASER INCLUDING ANTI-GUIDING REGIONS FOR HIGHER-ORDER LATERAL MODE SUPPRESSION

摘要

A broad area laser diode (10) is configured to include an anti-guiding layer (30, 60) located outside of the active region of the device. The anti-guiding layer is formed of high refractive index material that serves to de-couple unwanted, higher-order lateral modes (attributed to thermal lensing problems) from the lower-order mode output beam of output signal from the laser diode. The anti-guiding layer is formed using a single epitaxial growth step either prior to or subsequent to the steps used to grow the epitaxial layers forming the laser diode itself, thus creating a structure that provides suppression of unwanted higher-order modes without requiring a modification of specific process steps used to fabricate the laser diode itself.