Degradation studies and pump optimization of optically pumped red-emitting AlGaInP-VECSELs

Optically pumped semiconductor (OPS) vertical external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) are an important category of power scalable lasers with a wide range of applications in biophotonics, medicine technologies, spectroscopy, projector technologies and lithography. The open laser resonator allows to implement frequency selective and converting intra-cavity elements. The possibility of bandgap engineering, laser emission in the fundamental Gaussian mode and the technical simplicity leads to ongoing growth of the area of applications for these tunable laser sources. We present degradation studies of metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy (MOVPE) grown, optically pumped, red-emitting AlGaInP-VECSELs with quantum wells (QWs) as active layers. Laser performance in continuous operation, pumped with a 532nm Nd:YAG laser and recorded over several hours, will be shown. Surface investigations of the gain structure via large-area photoluminescence maps show the possible consequences of optical pumping. A comparison of barrier-pumped performance data with the data of an in-well pumped VECSEL device is shown.