High-power high-brightness 808nm QCW laser diode mini bars

A new class of high power high brightness 808 nm QCW laser diode mini bars has been developed. With nLight's nXLT facet passivation technology and improvements in epitaxial structure, mini bars of 3 mm bar width with high efficiency design have tested to over 280 W peak power with peak efficiency over 64% on conduction cooled CS packages, equivalent to output power density near 130 mW/μm. These mini laser bars open up new applications as compact, portable, and low current pump sources. Liftests have been carried out on conduction cooled CS packages and on QCW stacks. Over 370 million (M) shots lifetest with high efficiency design has been demonstrated on CS so far without failure, and over 80 M shots on QCW stacks with accelerated stress lifetest have also proven high reliability on mini bars with high temperature design. Failure analysis determined that the failure mechanism was related to bulk defects, showing that mini laser bars are not prone to facet failure, which is consistent with the large current pulse test and failure analysis on high power single emitters.