Gain saturation and high-power pulsed operation of GaSb-based tapered diode lasers with separately contacted ridge and tapered section

(AlGaIn)(AsSb) ridge-waveguide tapered diode lasers with separately contacted ridge and tapered sections, emitting at 1.93μm, have been analyzed in pulsed mode with respect to their high-power capability and wavelength tunability. Operating the ridge section above saturation, a variation of the current through this section resulted in a change in lasing wavelength, while changing the current injected into the tapered section at a constant ridge current allowed to vary the output power at constant lasing wavelength. Furthermore, the optical power required to saturate the tapered amplifier section has been derived from a comparison of the experimental characteristics with beam propagation method calculations.