Continuously tunable 0.5 W single-frequency diode laser source

We report on the generation of continuously tunable high power radiation near 780 nm by using a travelling wave GaAs/GaAlAs amplifier with a laterally tapered gain region seeded by a low power external cavity diode laser. Stable single frequency operation and a tuning range of 20 nm without mode hops between 771 nm and 791 nm has been achieved. For an input power of 2.4 mW, a cw output of almost 0.5 W at 782 nm was obtained.