News: Optoelectronics
28 September 2021
Freedom launches aura product line with 2.5W diffraction-limited 1550nm lasers and SOAs
Component, module and subsystem maker Freedom Photonics LLC of Santa Barbara, CA, USA has launched its new high-power diffraction-limited semiconductor laser and semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) product line aura. The first commercial offerings are 1550nm semiconductor lasers and SOAs that achieve 2.5W continuous wave optical power with >25% E/O efficiency and nearly diffraction-limited beam quality (M2 about 1.3)
“Conventional broad-area edge-emitting diode lasers offer excellent power conversion efficiency but poor beam quality, and for the past 30 years the technology has not fundamentally changed; improvements in brightness and efficiency have been steady, but incremental,” says Dr Paul Leisher, VP of research. “Our proprietary aura design solves the beam-quality problem, thus delivering powers and efficiencies comparable to broad-area lasers with nearly-diffraction-limited output,” he claims. “This highly disruptive technology delivers a full order-of-magnitude increase in power compared to existing single-spatial-mode semiconductor lasers and amplifiers in this wavelength band.”
Freedom Photonics is beginning to deploy this chip technology into consumer, industrial and defense markets. Applications of the 2.5W aura 1550nm laser include next-generation high-brightness laser pump sources and illumination. The aura SOA offers (for the first time, it is reckoned) an alternative to bulky erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) critical to optical communication, sensing and automotive light detection & ranging (LIDAR) at substantially reduced cost.
Customization of aura lasers and amplifiers and extension to other wavelengths between 1300nm and 2100nm is possible, notes the firm.
More information regarding the performance and advancements enabled by aura will be presented by Dr Jenna Campbell, director of High Power Laser Engineering, at the 27th IEEE International Semiconductor Laser Conference (ISLC 2021) in Potsdam, Germany on 13 October.
