Influence of nonlinear effects on the characteristics of pulsed high-power broad-area distributed Bragg reflector lasers

We theoretically analyze the influence of nonlinear effects such as spatial holeburning, two-photon absorption and gain compression on the power–current and beam characteristics of a high-power broad-area distributed Bragg reflector laser with a stripe width of 50 $$\upmu$$μm operated in pulsed mode and compare them with simulations of a similar Fabry–Pérot laser. On the one hand, spatial holeburning leads to a higher mean intensity within the cavity for a Fabry–Pérot laser and resulting higher losses in combination with two-photon absorption and gain compression, on the other hand, excitation of higher order lateral modes leads to losses through the Bragg grating. In combination with spatio-temporal power variations resolved by the utilized time-dependent traveling wave model two-photon absorption leads to higher power losses compared to those models using averaged powers.

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