Phase-Locked Integrated Arrays of Injection Lasers Ch2

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Phase-locked integrated arrays of injection lasers
This article has been downloaded from IOPscience. Please scroll down to see the full text article. 1989 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 1261 (http://iopscience.iop.org/0049-1748/19/10/R01) View the table of contents for this issue, or go to the journal homepage for more
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REVIEW Phase-locked integrated arrays of injection lasers

I.S. Goldobin, N.N. Evtikhiev, A. G. Plyavenek, and S. D. Yakubovich
All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Optophysical Measurements, Moscow
(Submitted July 11, 1988) KvantovayaElektron. (Moscow) 16,1957-1994 (October 1989) A review is given of the main results obtained in the last few years in the course of development and studies of integrated injection laser arrays. The main configurations of such arrays are considered: they differ in respect of the structure of the active elements and methods used to couple the elements optically. The main approaches to calculations of the mode compositions of the output radiation are described. The experimental energy, spectral, spatial, and dynamic parameters of laser arrays are reported to illustrate the attained levels of their technical characteristics. An analysis is made of phase locking of the radiation from laser arrays by injecting an external phase-locking optical signal, and also by using a shared external resonator, spectral-spatial selectors, and other external optical components.
INTRODUCTION
The idea of in-phase operation of many separate generators of a periodic force acting on a shared load is as old as the world itself. In ancient times where the muscle source of energy predominated this idea was strikingly manifested by Greek and Roman triremes, and even earlier in ritual boats of the pharaohs. These oldest examples of technological civilizations already manifest the main features of the future multielement sources of coherent radiation: separate initially independent generators which were oarsmen forced into the slavery of conformism in order to carry out shared work; a master oscillator in the form of the drummer setting the tempo; the shared load which was a ship moving forward, etc. This was followed by the flowering of classical mechanics with its apogee of practical application in the form of the pendulum clock. Tricks of unscrupulous clockmakers, who astonished the public by synchronism of many clock mechanisms hanging from a wall. They were clever enough to detect experimentally this synchronization effect and the locking of vibrations of mechanical oscillators coupled by a common elastic base. Finally, we come to the age of electricity: the needs of industry have created long-distance transmission lines and ring ac energy systems supplied by synchronized generators at power stations separated sometimes by thousands of kilometers from one another (which are incidentally, distances not exceeding the oscillator wavelength). Gradual reduction in the wavelength in radio electronics down to the centimeter and millimeter ranges has brought in a new feature in synchronization of electromagnetic generators: in this case the shared load is free space, where a single radiation field is formed by superposition of coherent wave fields of phase-locked partial generators. However, even in the case of the shortest-wavelength synchronized generators combined into phase-locked antenna arrays the distance between the individual sources is of the order of magnitude of the wavelength. In the case of laser radiation it is difficult to avoid temp1261 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989
tation to interpret the operation of a laser on the basis of synchronization of independent oscillators and regard the output as synchronized radiation of an ensemble of atomic oscillators working on a shared load in the form of a resonator mode. This is precisely how stimulated emission of light can be considered from the point of view of the classical theory of oscillations. However, in quantum electronics (laser technology) we are faced also with a more direct task of extension of these principles to systems of homogeneous lasers. We shall concentrate on phase locking of coherent radiation from injection lasers, which was first considered as a problem in Ref. 1. We shall discuss mainly the technical solutions employing integrated semiconductor technology, which can be used to fabricate monolithic regular arrays of injection lasers. The main purpose of these investigations has been to combine in the same device such advantages as a high output power and a high degree of coherence together with other well-known advantages of injection lasers. It was suggested in Ref. 2 that this could be achieved by distributed coupling of radiation out of a laser with a large-volume active element. The first experimental investigations, demonstrating the practical feasibility of solving this problem, were carried out in the early seventies.34 These investigations were concerned, in terms of the modern language, with an array of active Y-couplers based on a laser homostructure made of GaAs (Fig. 1). Subsequently the rate of growth of
FIG. 1. Overall view of a zigzag-shaped GaAs laser array (crystal width 500 /mi). 1990 American Institute of Physics 1261
0049-1748/89/101261-24S04.10
studies in this topic has continuously increased and this is particularly true of the early eighties: in 1979 about 10 papers were published on this subject, whereas in 1986 there were about 100 such papers. In the present review there is no possibility and no need to analyze the history of the problem and to discuss in detail all the papers on phase-locked injection laser arrays. We shall regard our task as carried out if we can describe the main trends in the research on this topic and to give an account of the current status of the results. The high interest in this topic is primarily due to practical demands. Powerful compact laser sources with a beam divergence close to the diffraction limits which can be modulated directly by varying the current are needed in optical systems of fiber and open (including space) communica5 7 tions, " in optical data storage systems," in systems used to 9 10 pump solid-state lasers, in holographic data systems, " and so on. A trivial way of increasing the output power of a laser by increasing the volume of the active region in the case of a traditional injection laser with its own resonator is limited for obvious reasons because of the need to ensure a sufficiently low threshold current density (which depends on the thickness of the active layer), to optimize relationship between the radiative and dissipative losses (resonator length), and to minimize the losses associated with the excitation of higher spatial modes and of superluminescence in directions toward the inactive part of the laser (width of the active layer). This applies to pulsed pumping with a fairly large off-duty factor. In the case of cw injection the thermal limitations come to the fore. One should mention that fabrication of laser heterostructures with separate confinement of carriers and the field and extremely small (right down to quantum-well) thicknesses of the active layers characterized by threshold current densities of the order of 100 A/cm 2 (Ref. 12) has in practice lifted the limitations on the width of the active layer. Fabrication of multielement integrated arrays from such structures can ensure an output power in excess of 5 W in the cw lasing case' 3 and up to 20 W in the case of pulses of 150^s duration (Ref. 14). The spectral and spatial characteristics show trends typical of all types of semiconductor lasers: an increase in the volume of the active region causes deterioration of the "quality" of the radiation. This is due to an increase in the number of the emitted modes, an increase in the probability that the active region contains crystal defects, and easier manifestation of various nonlinear optical effects. Great progress has been made recently in the fabrication of injection lasers with a high degree of spectral and spatial coherence of the radiation. 1 5 1 6 This applies particularly to many lasers with a transverse cross section of the active channel of the order of a few square microns. Improvements in technological methods for localization of the injected carriers and of the optical field in lasers both with their own resonator or with various integrated mode selectors make it possible to ensure reliably the linearity of the watt-ampere characteristic and stable generation of the fundamental (zeroth) transverse and the sole longitudinal mode in a wide range of working currents. When integrated arrays of such lasers are created, the optical coupling necessary to ensure their phase locking (excitation of a shared supermode) can be realized only if use is made of structures such as active Y-couplers mentioned above as well as structures with a dense packing of parallel active
1262 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989
channels ensuring the interaction of optical fields in the 1718 space between the channels. In the case of phase-locked lasing in such arrays the best cw output power has been up to 0.35 W in a spatial lobe of half-width less than V (Ref. 19). The results of theoretical and experimental investigations of these properties, which are of the greatest interest in practical applications, represent the main content of this review. Earlier investigations of phase locking of radiation in sets of discrete injection lasers have relied extensively on external optical components (spectral and spatial selectors, shared external resonators, matching devices, etc.) and on 20 injection of an external phase-locking optical signal. These methods have been extended by modern glass-fiber optics, used also in connection with integrated injection laser arrays and will be discussed also below.
1. METHODS OF CALCULATION OF THE MODE COMPOSITION OF RADIATION EMITTED BY INTEGRATED INJECTION LASER ARRAYS
The main purpose of theoretical investigations of different types of multicomponent laser arrays has been the identification of structures with stable in-phase lasing of the individual lasers. It is in this case that a high output power can be combined with a high spatial coherence. The difficulties encountered in realization of such a regime are due to the existence of various eigenmodes of the array as a whole or of "supermodes" characterized by specific distributions of the phases between the individual light sources. The first theoretical investigations2'22 have been concerned with two array eigenmodes characterized by a phase shift between the adjacent resonators, amounting to = 0 and = . In the former case, which is preferable from the practical point of view, a single-lobe distribution of the intensity of light forms in the far-field diffraction zone, whereas in the latter case a two-lobe distribution is obtained. These modes can be described qualitatively on the basis of the usual theory of diffraction by considering an ./V-component array of lasers regarded as a diffraction grating. 2 ' Then, the distribution of the intensity in the far-field zone is F(e) = cos2 |()|2(), (1)
where is the angle measured from the axis oriented along the resonator axis of a single radiation source in the array plane YZ (because of the smallness of the angle the factor cos2 can usually be ignored); | () | 2 is the distribution of the intensity of the radiation from a single component of an array observed in the far-field zone;
= kfyDsinQ; k0 = 2/; 0 is the wavelength in free space; D is the array period; = 0, . This approach does not give all the eigenmodes of the array with > 2 and postulates a homogeneous periodic distribution of the radiation intensity in the near-field zone. An array with JV> 1 is described in Ref. 22 by an equation for coupled waves, but only two supermodes with = 0, were discovered. The selection of a given method for a more rigorous theoretical calculation of the structure of the field of a laser array is governed primarily by the coupling between the adjacent components. Monolithic arrays consisting of stripe
Goldobineia/. 1262
FIG. 2. Phased arrays of lasers with a built-in dielectric waveguide (BDW) and a channel in the substrate (a) and of lasers with no dielectric waveguide (NDW) (b), and distributions of the gain g and of the effective refractive index nc<f in BDW (c) and NDW (d) laser arrays: 1) -type GaAs; 2) -type Al 0 Ga,, 6 5 As; 3) p-type GaAs active region; 4) />-type Al() , 5 AGa 0 ,,, As; 5) -type GaAs substrate; 6) p-type GaAs substrate; 7), 8) coatings acting as contacts with/;- and -type + regions of the structure; 9) proton implantation region; 10)/) type GaAs. ni.
lasers can be divided, depending on the structure of the individual components, into two wide classes: with a built-in dielectric waveguide (BDW) and with no dielectric waveguide (NDW). It is well known that the properties of conventional semiconductor lasers also depend strongly on the presence or absence of waveguide confinement in the p-n junction plane. 23 In the case of arrays with a BDW (Fig. 2a) a waveguide in an array component is formed by a positive jump of the real part of the effective refractive index n'ef(. It is clear from Fig. 2 that BDW arrays are characterized by separation of the mechanisms of mode amplification and their control, i.e., the formation and maintenance of a particular field configuration, which is undoubtedly an advantage. The coefficient k representing the coupling between array components is governed by the overlap of the fields of the individual waveguides and by the profile of the effective refractive index. For a given jump of n'cff the value of depends primarily on the distance between the waveguides. In the case of NDW arrays (Fig. 2b) only the injection current can be confined within the active stripes. This confinement has the effect that in regions with the highest value of the gain g there are negative jumps of the real value of ncff. Consequently, we encounter what is known as the antiwaveguide effect, which results in a strong coupling of the modes of the individual waveguides with one another because of a considerable degree of overlap between their fields. The clearest description of the normal modes of the array can be provided in the weak coupling approximation, which is valid in the case of a BDW array when the distance between components is sufficiently large, so that the modes of each waveguide are well-defined. This approximation was used to obtain for the first time normal modes of an Ncomponent BDW array and to find the corresponding modal gains and the emission wavelength. The most general formulation of this approach can be found in Refs. 27 and 28. Following the treatments given in these papers, we shall expand the resultant field of an TV-component array on the basis of the normal modes of the individual waveguides:
indicates that this is the1 transverse component of the field; is the propagation constant of the corresponding array mode. It is assumed here that there is only one normal transverse mode (for example, TE) in an isolated waveguide. The equation for the coupled modes
can yield equations for the eigenvalues of the eigenvector v v) U ( = {{/<">,/< , ..., /{;''} which obey the relationship
M U ( v ) = avU ( v ) (5)
where is a square XN matrix and
M = C~'BC + C~ K,
(")
is a diagonal matrix with the elements bpm = , Spm; , is the propagation constant of a mode of an individual waveguide; Spm is the Kronecker delta. The matrix C contains overlap integrals of the modes emitted by the individual waveguides: cpm = 2z\\[E\m)XW{tr'))dxdy
oo
(p,m=l,2
N). ( 7 )
The elements of the matrix C are normalized as follows: cmm = 1 (m = 1, 2, ..., N). The matrix determines the coupling between the waveguides: (8) where = e(x,y) - (x,y); e(x,y) and " (, y) are the distributions of the permittivity in the waveguide array and in a single (/>th) waveguide, respectively. In the case of an array consisting of identical components, which we shall consider in the present section, we have = { is a unit matrix) and instead of Eq. (6) we now have
() () (
(x,y) exp (/),
(3)
where is the serial number of the array mode; the index t

1263
Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989
Figure 3 shows the distributions ^) and (/ " (y) for a BDW array with m - 3. The following assumptions were made in Refs. 2426 and these are valid also in the case of a smaller overlap of the fields in the absence of mutual amplification between the 27 waveguides : the matrix Cis regarded as a unit matrix and it is assumed that the only nonzero elements of the matrix
Goldobin etal. 1263
tions of the supermodes R 24 are described by
(v)
() [compare with Eq. (2) ]
) ={sm[N& + tf
We can also see that in the = 1 case Eq. (18) differs from Eq. (2), so that in the near-field zone the distribution of the radiation intensity is inhomogeneous [see Eq. (14) ]. Figures 5c, 5d, 6b, and 7b show the distributions of the intensities and phases of the array modes in the near-field (v> ) v) zone/ 0>) and (y) and in the far-field zone F* (), <v> as well as the distributions of the modal gain G and of the difference /l ^'a'x between the wavelengths of the vth mode and of the mode corresponding to the maximum modal gain, calculated for BDW arrays with = 3 avoiding the use of the weak coupling approximation (see below). The results in these figures are in qualitative agreement with the above model when Im k > 0 and Re k > 0, which is based on the calculations of A reported in Ref. 25. It is clear from Fig. 7b : that in this case the = 3 mode is excited strongly. In many types of strongly coupled arrays (particularly BDW arrays) when the distance between the components is small, the above approximation cannot be used in general. In such cases we have to solve the wave equation for the array as a whole. 30 33 The task can be simplified by employing the method of an effective refractive index,34 which makes it possible to reduce the two-dimensional problem in the XY plane (where X axis is perpendicular to the active layer) to the one-dimensional task. If the electric field of an optical wave is represented by
9{x, y, ) = ()(/)[( - /)],
+1
FIG. 3. Distributions of the permittivity in a three-component BDW ar1 ray (a) and the permittivity perturbation '' for thepth waveguide (bd). The numbers label the waveguides.
are the near-diagonal elements kmm+ , = km+ , >m =k (m = 1,2, ...,N 1). We can then readily obtain a general <v) expression relating U and for an array with an arbitrary number of components. In fact, using Eq. (9) with C = E, we find from Eq. (5) that ( )/ > 4-/ ) _ 1 +*; ) + =0 (m=\,2, ...,). (10)
The methods for solving Eq. (10) are well known. Similar equations describe the phonon spectrum and the electron states in a model of tightly bound electrons in a one-dimensional periodic system (see, for example, Ref. 29). If we apply the formalism associated with the transfer matrix T, which generates consecutive equations of this type, we find that the matrix form of Eq. (10) is (11) and, consequently,
,(v)
(19)
(&)-">r
where
:,7v
(i2)
we obtain 3 1 3 5 3 6 : + ( * + klT(y)At(y)- 2) = 0,
(20)
(13) Then, imposing the boundary conditions of the type /v) = 0 and U^'\., = 0, we readily obtain from Eq. (12) the following expressions29
where
2 ff
is defined by the equation
2/2 + (klto(x,)-)
= 0.
(21)
U&=sln(mtf%
U )
Here, F(y) is the optical confinement factor; k0 = 2/0; e{x,y) =eo(x,y) + {y) is a function describing the distribution of the permittivity in the active and emitter layers; Ae(y) is the contribution made to the permittivity by the injected carriers and the built-in waveguide in the active region
(/) = 2(/) + 0" RaN(y)
l
where ^ ( v > = irv/(N + 1) and the number of modes is identical with the number of array components = l,2,...,N.It is clear from Eq. (14) that in the case of the = 1 mode the phase shift between the adjacent lasers is = 0, whereas for the = mode we have = . We shall retain similar numbering in the future. It follows from Eq. (15) that the modal gain is given by 25 G<v>= 2 I r n a , (16)
\g{y) (22)
and the difference between the emission wavelength of the relevant array mode A<v) and the mode of a single laser 0 is () = () - - 2Xo(Re k/Re cos ( ) . (17)
Using Eqs. (14) and (3), we find that the interference func1264 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989
is the refractive index of the active layer; the distribution of the refractive index 77 describes the built-in waveguide; R is the antiwaveguide parameter; g(y) = aN(y) b is the gain; a and b are constants; N(y) is the distribution of the injected carrier density in the lateral direction; a f c is the coefficient representing the absorption of radiation by free carriers. A suitable selection of the profile of the effective refractive index n eff [ 2 ff = \s/k\ + T(y)Ae(y) ] and the use of Eq. (20) allows us to describe supermodes for different types of strongly coupled arrays. 30 " 32 Comparing Eq. (20) with the Schrodinger equation for electrons, we can draw an
Goldobine/a/. 1264
analogy between determination of the normal modes of an array of waveguides characterized by a real function e)r 0 0 , on the one hand, and calculation of the Bloch states of electrons in the one-dimensional periodic potential. 37 38 True, in the majority of the practical cases the pattern becomes more complex, since the distribution neff(y) has an imaginary part. We shall use a simple model to describe possible supermodes of BDW and NDW arrays with a periodic structure. Instead of Eqs. (20) and (21), we shall use just Eq. (20), where we shall assume that 2ff = k . We shall also assume that in each "cell" of an array of width D = w + s(u;is the waveguide width and s is the width of the gap) there is a step-like change in the effective refractive index n e f r . We shall first consider NDW and BDW arrays of stripe lasers. Figure 4 shows the profiles of n'eff and of the gain g, and separate cells in the case of NDW and BDW arrays. Each cell consists of regions 1 and 2 or 2 and 3. We shall solve the problem, as in the approximation of weak coupling, using a formalism involving the transfer matrix. 2 9 3 2 ' 3 7 Solving the differential equation (20) within the /th cell, we obtain exp( ip\yl), 0 < t / ; < s , (23a)
ip2y,). Pi = > , / = 1, 2,
hl =
(4P1P2)
(4P1P2) -
X [exp ( hl =
1
exp (ip ,-s) (P\ -p\) ip2w) exp (ip2w)], exp( - iP\S)
- ip2w) +2)2 2 - (/ -P2) exp(;> 2 w)],
and in general we can obtain an expression analogous to Eq. (12). In the case of NDW arrays considered here we can determine similarly the matrices ( | 3 ) and Tot). Applying boundary conditions of the W(y) -0 type in the limit y 0 and assuming that Im />, > 0 (or Im 0 p3>0), we obtain the following two equations from Eq. (23): a, = 0 and bN+ , = 0 . These equations can in turn be used to deduce a transcendental complex equation for the determination of the set of eigenvalues^. Each eigenvalue corresponds to a normal array mode with the distribution of the radiation intensity in the near-field zone given by / ( v ) (y) = |<> (y) | 2 , calculated from Eq. (23), and with a phase () (y) { ( ) (y) = / ( v ) l/2 (>')exp[/t/' (v) 0 0 ] } and by a gain G ( v ) . The distribution of the radiation intensity in the far-field zone is <)(/) exp (ik&y)dy
(27)
(23b)
(24)
where/= 1, ...,N+ 1; is the number of stripes. In the case of an NDW array the cells at the boundaries are characterized by / = 1 and I = + I and the function , (y) differs from Eq. (3) by the substitution of p3 (p\ -2 ) instead of/?,. The conditions of continuity 7 (y) and ,/dy at the points > , = s and at the boundaries of a cell follow from the > nature of Eq. (20). Using these conditions, we can relate the coefficients a,, b, t o a / + , and b,+ , via the transfer matrix "":
a
The main properties of NDW and BDW arrays can be demonstrated by considering three-component structures (N = 3) as examples. A calculation carried out as described above was made on the assumption that s = w = 4 , r(t/)=const = ( = 3.5, = 0.85 ^m, 6=100cm^', a f c = 0 and
3
R= 2,
(28a) (28b)
(29)
for an NDW array and on the assumption that
'+> _
_( (
'
(25) (26)
2 1
hi
4=0;^,=6, g2=200cm
(30)
where
)[(/?, +p2)2 (Px -P2)
2
exp {ip2w)
exp (
-ip2w)],
'12= (Vi/H)"' exp( -ipts)(p22
-p])
X [exp (ip2w) exp( ip2w)],
for a BDW array [ 0 0 0 is the Heaviside function]. Calculations of the eigenvalues show that in this case there are supermodes characterized by > 3 and the relative difference between the maximum modal gain G m a x and the value G(v> 3 ) for a BDW array is much greater than for an NDW array, so that the modes with > 3 in the case of a BDW array will be ignored. Supermodes with > in
I /
1
2 1 1 'a FIG. 4. Distributions of the gain and of the real part of the effective refractive index shown for the simplified models of NDW (a) and BDW (b) laser arrays.
"efl
1265
Goldobine/a/.
1265
05
FIG. 5. Distributions of the radiation intensity (a,c,e) and of the phase (b,d,f) in the near-field zone of an NDW laser array (Fig. 4a) (a,b), of a BDW array (see Fig. 4b) (c,d), and of a wide-contact BDW array (see Fig. 9) (e,f). Here, represents the supermode number.
NDW arrays had been investigated 32 33 35 39 40 and it was shown in Refs. 35 and 40 that if we allow for the heating of a laser crystal, the discrimination of the modes characterized by > decreases and it is possible to observe experimentally the array mode characterized by = 11 and = 10. Figure 5 shows the distributions 7 ( v ) (y) and {) (y) calculated for arrays of both types on the basis of the adopted model. In the case of an NDW array we shall confine our attention to just five modes and we shall label the modes characterized by > 3 in accordance with the number of maxima of the function 7 ( v ) (y) (following Refs. 32 and 35).
Figure 6 shows the distributions 7^ v) () calculated on the basis of Eq. (27) for the modes in question. We can see that a single-lobe angular distribution is observed only for the = 1 mode and the gain of this mode is maximal only in the case of an NDW array (Figs. 7a and 7b). The difference between the gains for the first three modes in the arrays of both types is slight and, for example, a reduction in the discontinuity 7 and allowance for the spread of carriers in the 7 case of a BDW array can ensure that G "' = G m a x . Moreover, as pointed out earlier (see, for example, Ref. 41) we can alter somewhat the relationship between the values of G(v) by
F rel. units V=f ,
FIG. 6. Distributions of the radiation intensity in the far-field zone in the case of NDW (a), BDW (b), and wide-contact BDW (c) arrays.
-10 -5 0
-f 1
-5 0
S ' - -S 0
5 '
- 5 0 5 9
1266
Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19(10), Oct. 1989
Goldobine/a/.
1266
6, rel. units
xi
n m
6, . Units 10
, nm 0.010 FIG. 7. Dependence of the modal gain G( 1) and of the difference between the wavelengths of the vth mode and the mode with the maximum value of G(2) on the supermode number in the case of NDW (a), BDW (b), and wide-contact BDW (c) arrays.
o.oos
0 cues
varying the distance s between the components of an array and also varying the number of components N; a reduction in the channel width w below a certain critical value can prevent the appearance of higher-order supermodes at the threshold.42 The detuning of the emission wavelength representing different supermodes from the mode G = G m a x has its maximum value /l ^va'x for an NDW array, as demonstrated in Fig. 7. Strictly speaking, the proposed approach is valid only up to and near the lasing threshold of an array. Above this threshold the solution of the system (20)-(21) must allow for gain saturation and spatial burning of "holes" in the carrier distribution, which may be a strong effect because of an inhomogeneous distribution of the radiation intensity in the near-field zone (Fig. 5). Consequently, a redistribution of carriers in the lateral direction may result in preferential excitation of other modes or of several modes simultaneously. Therefore, in approaching self-consistently this problem we must solve not only the equations for the field described by Eqs. (20) and (21), but also the rate equation describing the distribution of the injected carrier density in the lateral direction N(y) after allowance for carrier diffusion.3641'4344 The model was complicated still further by allowing for the inhomogeneity of the field of an optical wave along a lasing channel [ with an additional dependence of the function on in Eq. (19)) in Refs. 35 and 45. The results of such fairly complex calculations 35 ' 36 4 ' 4 3 4 5 demonstrate the following. Arrays of the NDW type cannot operate stably when emitting the first (fundamental) supermode and the slightest excess above the lasing threshold results in generation of supermodes with an index v> 1. In the case of BDW arrays with the stripe geometry a suitable selection of the parameters (for example, a small jump in ) allows us to go slightly beyond the threshold and still retain the emission of the fundamental supermode, but once again a further increase in the pumping rate excites higher-order supermodes. It should be stressed that such behavior of laser arrays above the threshold can be described qualitatively on the basis of our simple model if we alter suitably the values of gj (j' = 1, 2, 3) which are associated with a lateral distribution of the carriers N{y). A new configuration of BDW arrays in which the effective gain geff = Tg between the waveguides is higher than outside them was proposed in Refs. 46 and 47 for the purpose of increasing the stability of operation of laser arrays emitting the fundamental supermode. We can see from Figs. 5c and 5d that the intensity 7 <v) (y) of the third supermode near the center between the waveguides vanishes, whereas in the case of the fundamental supermode the intensity is nonzero.
Since the modal gain G < v ) is governed by the integral representing the overlap of gcSr (y) and 7<v> (y), it follows that an increase in the gain between the waveguides can result in a much lower threshold for the generation of the fundamental supermode compared with the TVth array mode. 46 Such BDW-type arrays with a wide contact can be constructed using a comb-like structure with a shared wide contact (Fig. 8). 4 7 (More details of this structure are given in Sec. 2.) Employing, as before, a simplified model we shall now calculate the mode composition of the radiation emitted by a wide-contact BDW array with = 3. Figure 9 shows the profiles of n'^, , and geff and identifies a "unit cell" of the grating. The method of solution of Eq. (20) is in this case analogous to the method used to solve the problem in the case of NDW and BDW arrays with the stripe geometry. The calculations were carried out on the assumption that s = w = 4 ,, = 3 = 0.5, 2 = 0.4; /? = 0; = 3.5; = ,85 , ,, = 0; , / =2.10- 3 (<,,-5)(>-/,); / = 1 , 2 , 3; 4 = 0;
1
(31a)
(31b) (31c)
; g 3 = - 100cm '.
Figures 5e and 5f show the near-field distributions of the intensity 7<v> (y) and the phase <) (y) for three supermodes, whereas Fig. 6b gives the corresponding distributions of the intensity 7^ ) () in the far-field zone. The calculated dependence of the modal gain G on the array mode number (Fig. 7c) demonstrates that the relative difference between the modal gains (G ( '' G ( 3 I /G ( '' in a wide-contact BDW array is fairly large (compared with a similar differ-
3 rt
FIG. 8. Comb-like structure of a phase array with a continuous contact (wide-contact BDW array) (a) and distributions of the effective refractive index, of the optical confinement factor, and of the effective gain in the structure (b): 1) p+-type GaAs; 2) /"-type A l 0 4 G a 0 6 A s ; 3) p-type Al 0 2 Ga 0 6 As; 4) p-type GaAs active region; 5) -type Al 0 4 G a 0 6 As; 6) ntype GaAs substrates; 7) SiO2; 8) contact coatings. Goldobinefa/. 1267
FIG. 9. Distributions of the effective refractive index, of the optical confinement factor, and of the effective gain obtained using a simplified model of a wide-contact BDW laser array.
ence for BDW and NDW arrays), which should result in a higher stability of the operation of wide-contact BDW arrays emitting the fundamental supermode. The results of a more complex analysis carried out using a rate equation for N(y) (Ref. 36) confirm this and allow us to draw the following conclusion: among the laser arrays with a one-dimensional periodic structure the highest stability of the fundamental supermode can be expected for widecontact BDW arrays.
2. CONFIGURATIONS OF MONOLITHIC PHASE-LOCKED INJECTION LASER ARRAYS. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS 2.1. Homogeneous stripe laser arrays with overlapping fields
The first experiments on phase-locked injection-laser arrays were carried out on structures representing a regular set of identical stripe lasers connected in parallel and located on the same substrate; they were separated by distances ensuring interaction between their electromagnetic
fields. '7.18.21,40,42.46-72 T
h e s e a r r a y s c o n s i s t e d o
f N D W and
BDW lasers. Phase-locked addition of the radiation from these lasers was achieved already in the early investigations. 1718 21 48 " 52 An array of 11 stripe 3- NDW lasers with insulation was formed by proton bombardment of (AlGa) As/GaAs heterostructures and it emitted cw radiation of 200 mW power in a narrow beam characterized by a half-width of about 1.5, which was close to the diffraction limit. 50 The same research team was later able to obtain a record cw output power of 2.6 W from a single mirror using a 40-component array. 54 In this case the angular distribution consisted of two lobes. The highest density of cw radiation of 1.3 W power from a 10067 mirror was achieved, again by the same team, in an investigation of an NDW array formed by two-stage epitaxy from metal-organic compounds. A high output radiation power was obtained in an angular distribution consisting of two lobes. Although a record output radiation power was obtained and lasing in the regime of the fundamental supermode was first demonstrated for NDW laser arrays, investigations of such arrays revealed their fundamental shortcoming which is a strong instability of the mode composition of the radiation in the presence of current variations due to a weak current-dependent waveguide confinement of the individual channels. In the case of arrays of this type the number of eigenmodes is considerably larger than the number of the lasers composing an a r r ay, 3 2 3 3 ' 3 5 4 0 7 1 andas
shown in Ref. 35 the difference in the relative gain of supermodes of higher orders compared with the fundamental mode is slight. Therefore, in the case of NDW arrays it is frequently found that several supermodes are emitted simultaneously, 52 ' 57 ' 72 giving rise to a multilobe angular distribution and broadening the emission spectrum. When the geometric dimensions of the waveguide and of the discontinuity of the effective refractive index at its boundaries are selected suitably, it is found that BDW lasers are characterized by a stable mode composition of the radiation and a good localization of the region of carrier injection. When radiation is combined in an array the output of adjacent lasers is usually locked in antiphase (higher-order supermode), which is due to the absence of amplification in the regions between the stripes. In this case the radiation emitted by an array has a two-lobe angular distribution, reducing the range of potential applications. However, one of the early investigations of BDW arrays 48 resulted in phase-locked lasing with a pulsed output power of 2.5 W, and cw lasing of a BDW array was demonstrated later 5 ' for ten mesa stripe 2- lasers with an output power of 180 mW. Up to 60 mW the far-field pattern consisted of two lobes about 3 wide and the emission spectrum was of single-frequency nature, demonstrating the emission of a single supermode. A further increase in the pump current resulted in multifrequency emission and additional lobes appeared in the angular distribution. Stable operation of a BDW array emitting a single frequency in a two-lobe angular distribution was reported in Ref. 55 for a ten-stripe array (with an output power up to 80 mW) and later also 66 for a three-laser array (up to 50 mW). These arrays were formed from a heterostructure with a channel in the substrate (V-shaped groove) and an expanded waveguide. Similar results were also reported in Refs. 62 and 63. The degree of coherence of the radiation emitted by the individual components of phase-locked injection laser arrays had been determined. 69 70 A microobjective with a sufficiently large numerical aperture formed a magnified image of the light-emitting facet (near-field zone) of an array. A two-slit stop was placed in the image plane; this made it possible to alter the relative positions of the slits and thus observe an interference pattern due to two arbitrarily selected array components. The degree of coherence ymn of the radiation emitted by the components was determined from the visibility of the interference fringes in the far-field radiation pattern defined as V= (/ max / m i n ) / ( / m a x + ) ~2\Ymn | (// )il2/dm + h ), where / and / are the intensities of the radiation emitted by the components. It was found that an eight-component array grown on a profiled substrate generated a supermode with a symmetric two-lobe angular distribution characterized by antiphase emission from adjacent components and in-phase radiation from components characterized by even values of the difference \m n\. The degree of coherence was fairly high and it was primarily governed by the distance between the components, falling from 0.9 for the adjacent components to 0.7 for the outer components in the array. The resultant angular distribution calculated from these measurements agreed quite accurately with that found by direct experiments. Therefore, phase-locked arrays of NDW or BDW lasers emitting stably the fundamental supermode can be conGoldobineia/. 1268
structed if additional measures are taken to ensure mode selection. It was proposed in Ref. 58 to establish such a distribution of the gain in the array channels that the radiation intensity distribution in the near-field zone represents the fundamental supermode. One radical solution is to form arrays with individual contacts to separate channels. Selection of the pump currents can be used not only to equalize the phases of oscillations in the channels, but also to compensate the difference between the amplitudes due to imperfections of the technology and to ensure scanning by a beam of light 73 generated in an array. The possibility of construction of such arrays was first demonstrated in Refs. 74 and 75. Contacts with individual lasers in an array were made by two-level metallization. Control of radiation from three- and four-component arrays was demonstrated. The half-width of a lobe in the angular distribution of the radiation intensity in the case of a fourcomponent array emitting the fundamental supermode was 1.8, which was very close to the calculated value. It is very difficult to fabricate arrays which have individual contacts with all the components when they are closely spaced and their number is large. Moreover, the necessary angular distribution of the radiation can be established only by careful selection of the currents in all the channels and this has to be done separately at each power level. Therefore, there have been no further developments in fabrication of such arrays. The main difference between the distribution of the radiation intensity in the near-field zone of the fundamental supermode from the corresponding distribution in the case of a higher-order supermode is the nonzero intensity in the space between the stripes (Fig. 5). This is due to the addition of the fields of adjacent lasers, which are in phase and which interact in the space between the stripes. This was used in Ref. 46 to propose that the conditions favoring preferential emission of the fundamental supermode be established in BDW arrays by a periodic distribution of the gain in such a way that its maxima are in the space between the channels. The same authors suggested later 47 realization of this idea by construction of a laser array with a so-called comb structure and a shared wide contact (Fig. 8). In a structure of this type the thickness of the waveguide layer above a thin active region is varied periodically forming waveguide channels in parts with the greater thickness of the waveguide, where the effective refractive index is higher. Homogeneous injection through a shared contact establishes gain maxima in the regions between the channels where the waveguide layer is thick because of the higher value of the optical confinement factor . The effective refractive indices and are calculated in Ref. 47 inside and outside a waveguide for a typical (AlGa)As/GaAs heterostructure emitting at = 0.8 /im and the conditions for generation of a single (lowest TE 0 0 ) mode in such a waveguide are determined; in the opinion of the authors this should ensure generation of the fundamental supermode of the whole array with a single-lobe angular distribution. However, as pointed out by the authors, when the lasing threshold is exceeded greatly in the waveguides, so that the intensity of the radiation is much higher than in the space between the channels, the carrier density should decrease and this should result in enhancement of a discontinuity of the effective refractive index at the edges of the waveguide and should increase again in the space between the
waveguides. This in turn should result in the emission of a transverse mode of a higher order (TE 0 1 ) and although the generation of the fundamental mode by the array is retained, the angular distribution of the radiation has side lobes along the + /D directions, where D is the array period. It should be pointed out that when an array consists of identical stripe lasers, coupled by the overlap of the fields, the intensities of the radiation emitted by the individual channels are different and this is true when any supermode is generated (Fig. 5). When the threshold is exceeded significantly, the spatial depletion of carriers in the channels with the higher radiation intensity should reduce the density of the injected carriers, alter the distribution of the gain and the effective refractive index, and establish conditions favoring 36 76 77 the emission of other supermodes. This is the main reason for the instability of the mode composition of arrays at high radiation powers. A theoretical analysis of the various types of phased arrays with five identical components is reported in Ref. 36; the analysis includes a comb-like configuration with a continuous wide contact (BDW) with the gain maxima located between the waveguides. It is shown there that all the analyzed types of arrays fail to ensure stable mode composition. The best results can be expected of a wide-contact BDW array, where initially a fundamental mode appears, but when the current reaches 1.14/th, a second mode with the index 4 appears and this is followed by the third mode when the current reaches / = 2.14/ lh ; here, / l h is the threshold current. An analysis of the influence of the width of the shared contact on the mode composition of the radiation emitted by a wide-contact BDW array is reported in Ref. 78. It is shown there that a reduction in the width of the contact and approach of its boundaries to those of the extreme waveguides increases the probability of antiphase emission from neighboring channels. A detailed analysis of the operation of BDW arrays with amplification between the channels is made in Ref. 79 using the example of a two-channel array, which is then extended to arrays with a large number of channels. It is shown there that a reduction in the channel dimensions and of the interchannel distance stabilizes the fundamental supermode, but this stability deteriorates rapidly on increase in the number of channels. The results of experimental investigations of wide-contact BDW comb-like laser arrays with a maximum gain between the channels were found to be in good agreement with the predictions made in Refs. 36, 47, and 79. Such investigations were reported in Refs. 59, 60, and 65 for (GaAl)As/GaAs heterostructures and in Ref. 61 for the (InGa)AsP/InP system, in which coherent addition of = 1.3 laser radiation was achieved for the first time. In all cases we observed single-lobe distribution of the radiation intensity in the far-field zone at currents up to ~ 1.5/th. At higher values of the current the angular distribution of the output radiation became wider because of the appearance of higher-order supermodes. The experimental and theoretical investigations of phased arrays of identical stripe lasers, coupled by the overlap of the electromagnetic fields, demonstrate that generation of the fundamental mode is not possible in such arrays at high radiation intensities because the mode discrimination is weak and spatial "holes" are burnt in the carrier density.
Goldobineia/. 1269
4-nnnruL "tjinnnrL 4Jinnnn__
MJ\
10 10
I'AA
1
1
units
\
1
-20 -10
10
10
10
30
4 a
c
} d
>t
FIG. 10. Distributions of the effective refractive index and the patterns of radiation in the near-field zone predicted for laser arrays with a homogeneous channel 3-//m wide and an interchannel spacing of 2 (a), with a symmetrically varying channel width (the channels are 4.0, 4.5, 5.0,4.5, and4.0//m from left to right, and the interchannel spacing is 2) (b), with a linearly varying channel width from 3 to 5 (interchannel spacing 2 ) (c),and relative mode amplification of supermodes in arrays with homogeneous channels (1), with a symmetrically varying channel width (2), and with a linearly varying channel width (3) (d) calculated for = 0.9 and a refractive index channel discontinuity of = 0.003 at the waveguide boundaries.
2.2. Phased arrays with inhomogeneously emitting channels
It was suggested in Ref. 80 that the fundamental supermode could be selected by constructing stripe laser arrays with a variable width of the emitting channels. Two types of five-channel arrays were considered: one with the channel width amounting to 5 at the center and decreasing by 0.5 on approach to the edges and the other with a linearly increasing width of the channel (from 3 to 5 ) between one edge and the other. Figure 10 shows the near-field patterns calculated in Ref. 80 for all the supermodes of the proposed configurations, compared with an array consisting of homogeneous channels; the relative values of the modal gain are also given. We can see that the proposed array configurations, particularly of the second type, are characterized by a much stronger mode selectivity than arrays with homogeneous (constant-width) channels. The fundamental supermode gain of such arrays is considerably higher than the gain for higher-order modes. Practical realization of the two types of array proposed in Ref. 80 was reported subsequently by the same authors. 8 1 8 2 They fabricated NDW arrays in which the injection regions were separated by proton implantation. A sixcomponent array with a linear increase in the channel width from 3 to 8 (Ref. 81) resulted in generation of the fundamental supermode up to the pump current twice as high as the threshold and with an angular distribution in the form of a single lobe about 2 wide, shifted by 3.5 relative to the array axis because of the asymmetry of the gain distribution. A characteristic feature of the investigated asymmetric NDW array was a single-lobe angular distribution of the radiation intensity not only in the case of the fundamental supermode, but also in the case of the second- and third1270 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19(10), Oct. 1989
order supermodes. An NDW array described in Ref. 82 was characterized by a symmetric variation of the lasing channel width from 7 at the center to 4 at the edges. In this case the fundamental supermode was generated up to a current of 1.5/ t h . A further increase in the pump current generated supermodes of higher orders and shorter wavelengths because of the spatial burning of "holes" in the carrier density distribution. At the same time the angular distribution became wider. A comb-like five-component BDW array with a constant width of the waveguide channels, but with an inhomogeneous distribution of the gain (Fig. 1 la), was described in Ref. 83. The width of the stripe contact ranged from 5 at
rel. units
FIG. 11. Schematic diagram showing a laser array with identical channels but a variable width of the pumped region (channel width 5 , spacing between the channels 3 , and pumped channels of widths 3, 4, 5, 4, and 4 from left to right) (a), and angular distribution of the radiation intensity in the 7 = 0.8 A case (b): 1) p + -type GaAs; 2) p-type Al ( ) ,5Ga O 6 5 As; 3) GaAs; 4) -type Al (l , 5 Ga, l<l5 As; 5) -type GaAs substrate; 6) pump current. Goldobine/a/. 1270
the center to 3 at the edges. Pumping with current pulses of 1-& duration resulted in stable generation of the fundamental supermode with a single lobe in the far-field pattern up to a current exceeding the threshold by a factor of 3 (Fig. 11 b). The width of the single lobe in the angular distribution remained stable for all the currents and it was approximately twice the diffraction limit, which was attributed to an inhomogeneity of the thickness and composition of the heterostructure layers grown by liquid phase epitaxy or due to imperfections of the mirrors (formation of steps by cleaving or deviation from the normal to the waveguide axis was found to broaden the angular distribution, as shown in Ref. 84). The stability of generation of the fundamental supermode was attributed by the authors to a good correspondence between the distribution of the gain and the distribution of the intensity of the fundamental supermode in the channels. An investigation of seven-component phased NDW arrays with a linear variation of the channel width from 5 to 8 , discussed in detail in Ref. 81, was reported in Ref. 85. + The difference was a smaller depth of penetration of the H ions during proton implantation in order to achieve a higher gain in the regions between the channels, which favored generation of the fundamental supermode. 46 ' 47 The distribution of the radiation intensity in the near-field pattern slightly below the threshold was smooth and the pumped regions were not separate. One lobe of width 1.5 was observed in the far-field pattern when the current was 1.3/th, which was equal to the diffraction limit, but the width increased to 2.2 f o r / = 1.8/th and the radiation power was 75 mW. A singlelobe angular distribution was observed in a second sample up to / = 5.2/lh when the radiation power was 450 mW. The width of the lobe was then 2.5 for / = 2.9/ th and 3.5 for I = 5.3/ I h . Broadening of the angular distribution was associated with the excitation of higher-order modes, which also had a single-lobe far-field pattern. 8 ' In a study reported in Ref. 86 a distribution of the effective refractive index and of the gain varied along an array in order to ensure stable generation of the fundamental supermode. A three-channel array was made of a heterostructure with V-shaped grooves in the substrate and a variable thickness of the lower />-type (AlGa)As emitter. The effective refractive index and the gain were the highest values in the central channel. A single-lobe angular distribution of the radiation about 3 wide was observed throughout the investigated range of pump currents right up to the cw output radiation power of 100 mW or 400 mW pulsed power, which was quite high for an array with just three 3- channels. A similar result was obtained by the same authors for a threecomponent array with a linear variation of the effective refractive index and of the gain in the channels. A laser array with a variable distance between the components was proposed in Refs. 87 and 88. The arrays were made of (AlGa)As/GaAs heterostructures with V-shaped grooves in the substrate. In a nine-component array the distance between the grooves varied from 7/zm at the center to 5 at the edges, which altered the coupling between the components. The contact to the/>-type layer of the structure was established in such a way that seven middle waveguide channels and the regions between them were pumped. The distance between the central channels was increased to ensure a more uniform distribution of the intensity in the nearfield pattern. Moreover, as pointed out by the authors, a
more homogeneous temperature distribution along the array was achieved. These arrays emitted cw radiation of up to 100 mW power with a differential quantum efficiency of 32%, which was limited by the fact that the pumped region was considerably greater in size than all the lasing regions taken together. The angular distribution of the radiation had either one fairly wide lobe which was a factor of 3-5 wider than that expected, or it consisted of two narrow lobes separated by an angle of 7. In both cases the emission spectrum consisted of just one line, demonstrating rigorous phase-locking of the lasing channels. An analysis carried out using a theory of coupled 8 modes * showed that the variation of the coupling between the channels in the proposed configuration had a strong influence on the radiation intensity distribution in the nearand far-field zones. In the reported experiments the variation of the coupling between the channels at the center and at the edges of the array was very large, which produced a minimum of the radiation intensity in the central channel for the lowest-order mode and for the mode with the index 2. On the other hand, a strong variation of the coupling reduced (practically to zero) the difference between the propagation constants of the first and second supermodes, with, respectively, one- and two-lobe distributions of the intensity in the far-field zone. Consequently, a single wide lobe was observed in the far-field zone when the emission spectrum was of single-frequency nature. A correct selection of the rate of change of the coupling between the channels from the center to the edges of the array could minimize the difference between the near-field intensities in the channels generating the fundamental supermode and thus achieve stable operation of the array at high radiation powers and with an output beam divergence close to the diffraction limit. A theoretical analysis of the modal gain was reported in Ref. 89 for BDW arrays of three types: homogeneous lasing channels; with a linearly varying distance between the channels, i.e., with a varying coupling coefficient between the channels; with a linearly varying width of the waveguide channels. The reported calculations were made for arrays with a comb-like waveguide made of InGaAsP/InP heterostructures emitting at = 1.3/xm; two gain profiles differing in respect of the gain in the interchannel regions were considered. The results of these calculations are presented in Fig. 12. It is clear that in the case of arrays with a variable coupling coefficient the distributions of the intensities of the lower and higher supermodes were approximately the same in the near-field zone, exactly as in the case of homogeneous arrays, and the modal gain was the same. Amplification in the interchannel spaces was found to have little effect on the modal selectivity of the arrays, because it increased only slightly the modal gain for the fundamental supermode. Therefore, such arrays did not provide conditions favoring preferential generation of the lowest supermode. Similar results were obtained in this analysis also for symmetric arrays with a large distance between the channels at the center, decreasing toward its edges. The only difference was that in this case the same modal gain was exhibited not only by the supermodes with the indices 1 and N, where is the number of channels, but also by the supermodes with the indices 2 and 1. Therefore, in the case of arrays with this configuration 8788 the angular distribution was equally
Goldobine/a/. 1271
3M5

s^*i
__ / 2
" 3 "/
\
-W
>
>-
2 3
,
0 10
-10
0 10 -10
G, rel. units
FIG. 12. Distributions of the field amplitude (a-c) and relative modal gain for two profiles of the gain in a structure (d-f) in laser arrays with a variable spacing between the channels (channel width 3 , spacing between the channels 3.5, 4, and 4.5 from left to right) (a,d), with homogeneous channels (channel width 3 , spacing between the channels 4) (b,e), and with channels of variable width (channel width 3.5, 3, 2.5, and 2 , spacing between channels 1.5 ) (c,f). The distributions of the effective refractive index (a-c) and of the gain (d-f) in the structure is shown at the top of each part of the figure.
likely to consist of a single wide lobe (representing generation of supermodes with the indices 1 and 2) or it could have two lobes (generation of supermodes of orders and I) in the far-field zone. In the case of arrays with a variable width of the waveguide channel the situation was different. In this case the modal gain for the fundamental supermode was considerably higher than for the remaining supermodes (Fig. 12), so that in the case of these arrays the angular distribution of the radiation should be mainly of the single-lobe nature. However, because of the inhomogeneous distribution of the intensity in the lasing channels once again the spatial burning of "holes" in the carrier density distribution at high pumping rates could result in the generation of higher-order supermodes and a consequent modification of the angular distribution. It was shown in Ref. 90 that a homogeneous distribution of the radiation intensity in the near-field zone of an array with identical homogeneously distributed channels can be obtained by simply increasing by a factor of /2~ the coefficients representing the coupling between the outer components of the array. This can be done by reducing somewhat the distance between the first and second, and between the Nth and (N l)th channels of the array. It is shown in Ref. 91 that an exactly the same result can be achieved by increasing somewhat the propagation constants in the outer channels and this can be done by increasing their
width. In both cases a slight change in the geometric parameters of an array can, according to the estimates in Ref. 91, result in a practically homogeneous distribution of the intensity in the lasing channel generating the lowest supermode. However, in our opinion the proposed methods produce a more homogeneous distribution of the intensity in the nearfield zone also in the case of the higher supermode and, since the mode selectivity of an array is practically unaffected, it is possible to use the proposed method in stabilization of a twolobe angular distribution of the radiation. It is therefore necessary to analyze the mode discrimination process in such arrays and to check experimentally the results obtained. An original variant of NDW arrays with a variable width and a variable coefficient of coupling between the lasing channels was proposed in Refs. 19 and 92. An array was made from an AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure grown by epitaxy from metal-organic compounds and the pumped re+ gions were separated by implantation of H ions. The array consisted of three sections (Fig. 13). In the central section which was 125- long there were nine pumped stripe regions with their width increasing linearly from one edge to the other (approximately from 4 to 6) and with identical distances between the centers amounting to 10 . In the other two sections, next to the array mirrors and of total length again 125 , the pumped regions were shifted by half-a-period, so that the spaces between the lasing channels were pumped. This was done to equalize the average values of the gain in the channels and in the interchannel spaces. The authors reported stable operation of this array when it was emitting in the fundamental supermode with a singlelobe angular distribution of the radiation intensity. An output radiation power in the pulsed regime of 570 mW and an angular distribution with a half-width of 1.9 were reported in Ref. 92, whereas in Ref. 19 the pulsed power was 420 mW when the lobe width was 0.8 and 350 mW of cw power when the lobe width was 0.7 (Fig. 13). In addition to the main lobe, the far-field distribution included also a small additional lobe representing the second supermode. It was mentioned in Ref. 92 that the angular distribution depended strongly on the lengths of the sections and this could be due to the influence of the diffraction coupling between the channels on the operation of the array. The stability of a single-lobe angular distribution unique to NDW arrays indicated considerable capabilities of the proposed structure. 19 92 Unfortunately, since the publi-
FIG. 13. Schematic diagram of a three-section laser array with a variable width of the lasing channel (a) and the far-field distribution of the cw radiation generated by this array when the output power was 120 m W (8), 235 mW (9), and 350 mW (10) (b): 1) pumped regions; 2) proton implantation regions; 3) / + -type GaAs; 4) />-type A l 0 4 G a 0 6 A s ; 5) quan> tum-well active region; 6) -type Al() 4 Ga 0 As; 7) -type GaAs substrate. Goldobinefa/. 1272
cation of these papers no other results on similar arrays had been published (at least to our knowledge), raising doubts about the reproducibility of the reported results. 2.3. Diffraction-coupled arrays It was proposed in Ref. 93 to increase the coupling between the neighboring components of an array by utilizing the interaction via the diffraction of light in the shared region near one or both mirrors where there were no waveguide channels (Fig. 14). If there is a phase shift of 2 between the light and returned back to its own channel (after reflection by a mirror) and that reaching the neighboring channels, the fundamental supermode with a singlelobe far-field pattern should be excited in an array. The diffraction coupling operates effectively if it is stronger than the coupling between the waveguides due to the overlap of the fields. In fact, the diffraction-coupled arrays are similar to arrays in a short external resonator. Experimental studies of phased diffraction-coupled arrays 9 3 " 9 6 were carried out on AlGaAs/GaAs and InGaAsP/ InP heterostructures and they demonstrated the effectiveness of this method in ensuring a stable single-lobe angular distribution (Fig. 14). All these investigations indicated that the length of the diffraction region was of critical importance. The operation of diffraction-coupled arrays was analyzed theoretically in Refs. 97-99 and it was shown there that in-phase lasing of the channels can be ensured if certain requirements are satisfied by the array parameters, such as the length of the waveguide and diffraction regions, the distance between the channels and their width, and the optical confinement coefficient of the channels. It was proposed in Ref. 99 to fabricate arrays with separate contacts to the diffraction region. At a sufficiently high rate of injection in this region the diffraction coupling between the channels increases and the requirements in respect of the waveguide confinement in the array channels can be relaxed. An example of a calculation of the critical gain in the diffraction region, ensuring generation of the fundamental supermode, was considered in Ref. 99 for a five-component array with specific geometric parameters. It was stressed there that the extremal sensitivity of the mode selection process in diffrac-
tion-coupled arrays to the geometric parameters of the array requires further investigations designed to optimize the construction of such arrays before they could be used in practice. 2.4. Arrays of coupled symmetric Y-couplers It was pointed out in the Introduction that the first experiments on phased arrays consisting of active Y-couplers 3 4 were made back in the seventies. ' Such investigations were 100 102 restarted only after a decade. " A phased array composed of active symmetric coupled Y-couplers is shown in Fig. 15. A theoretical analysis of the operation of such an array was given in Ref. 101 and then refined and developed further in Refs. 103-105. Following Refs. 103-105, we shall determine the mode composition of the radiation emitted by arrays of .V identical / symmetric coupled Y-couplers (Fig. 15a). It is usual to assume that each individual waveguide supports only one TE mode and only the strongest coupling in the Y-coupler itself is allowed for, whereas the overlap of the fields of the parallel waveguides is ignored. It is convenient to use in this case the formalism associated with the scattering matrix S. We shall begin by analyzing one component of an array shown in Fig. 15b. If the fields of the waves, incident on the Y-coupler from the first, second, and third waveguides, are denoted by u = {,, u2, M,}, the fields of the waves at the coupler output can be determined using a matrix s0: = sou, (32)
where = {v,,v2,v3}. It follows from the principle of reciprocity (see, for example, Ref. 106) that the matrix s0 is symmetric and can be written down as follows104:
/ 0 1/V2 0 \ so = ( 1/V2 0 1/V2 ). \ 0 I/V2 0 /
(33)
If u = {1, 0, l}, i.e., if the waves incident on a coupler have the same phase in the symmetric waveguides 1 and 3, it follows from Eqs. (32) and (33) that = {0, y[2, 0}. In this case the total intensity of the field at the entry to the coupler 2 _ = 2 is transmitted completely to the + 2 waveguide 2: |v,f + |v 2 | 2 + |v 3 | 2 = 2. If u = { - 1, 0, l},
X rel. units Face A IN-2
-20 -10
10
FaceS
FIG. 14. Schematic diagram of a laser array with a diffraction coupling (a) and the far-field radiation pattern obtained for///,h = 1.05 (1), 1.6 (2), and 2.1 (3) (b): 1) p + -typeGaAs; 2) p-type Al, ) 4 Ga a 6 As; 3) GaAs active region; 4) -type Al ()4 Ga () ,, As; 5) -type GaAs substrate; 6) Cr, Au; 7) AuGe. 1273 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19(10), Oct. 1989
FIG. 15. Schematic diagram of an array of active Y-couplers (a) and labeling of the amplitudes of the fields in the waveguides of a single Ycoupler (b). Goldobine/a/. 1273
i.e., if the waves incident on a coupler from the waveguides 1 and 3 have opposite phases, the total intensity of the field is transformed into radiative losses: = {0, 0, 0}. In the case of 27V 1 waveguides shown in Fig. 15a (even numbers are used to identify the upper waveguides), a scattering matrix of (27V 1) X (27V 1) dimensions can be written in the form
= 1, it is clear from Eq. (40) that 6>06 >0 for all T V modes and, consequently, the wavelengths of all the supermodes are equal. In the case of the first supermode it follows from Eq. (40) that , = 6b and the condition for self-excitation of the supermode is identical with the threshold condition for an individual light source: paPb e x P [2/ (PaLa It follows also from Eq. (40) that decreases monotonically on increase in and, consequently, the excitation threshold is higher for higher supermodes. Writing down the normalized difference between the threshold gains for the second and first (fundamental) modes in the form |[(,),]-[(.1)1 ]2}/[(),]22[/2(^-1)]2,(41) we can see that this difference decreases as I/TV2 at high values of T . This may limit the power of single-mode radiV ation emitted by an aray of Y-couplers when the number of components is increased. Equations (38) and (40) readily yield the distribution of the amplitudes U ( v ) = {U\V\U2V\...,U^} of different supermodes along the D plane and, consequently, along the face105: t/W= cos[(/n 1) (v\)n/(N\)], m = 2, 3 N-\, U\x)= 1/72; /;>= (-1) v -'/72, (42a) (42b) (42c)
s =
0 1/V2 0 1/V2 0 1/2 0 0 1/2 0 1/2 0 1/2

0 0
0 1/2 0 1/2 0 1/V2 0 1/V 0
. (34)
We can ignore the amplitudes of the modes with even values of the numbers u2j and v2J (J = 1,2,..., T 1) if we use the V boundary conditions on the face of a laser array A (Fig. 15a):
2,
(2 , 0 ) V2j =
(35)
where pa is the reflection coefficient expressed in terms of the field intensity (the corresponding power reflection coefficient is \pa | 2 ) , is the complex propagation constant, and La is the length of the waveguide from the plane C to the face A. We then have
= SU,
(36)
where = 1,...,7V. In the = 1 case, we have U ( l ) ={l/72, 1, 1 1,1,1/72), (43)
\ = {vl,v2,...,vNy, = {uuu2,...,uN}; where y_ ;y Vj =v2J_x\ ,; Uj = u22j_ ;j = 1,2,...,TV, and the nonzero elej , , j V V ments of the new symmetric scattering matrix of T X T
dimensions are ; i=e/4, / = 2, 3 N-\; (37b)
i.e., all the light sources are in phase and the distribution of the radiation intensity in the near-field zone is periodically homogeneous with the exception of two outer elements. In the case of the mode characterized by = T , we have V
(37c)
Allowing for the relationships between u and v, similar to that given by Eq. (35) but representing parts of the waveguides from the plane D to the plane (Fig. 15a), we can formulate the eigenvalue problem of finding the threshold conditions and the distribution of the radiation intensity in the near-field zone for different normal modes of the array: QU=aU,
(44)
i.e., the radiation emitted by adjacent components of an array is in antiphase, so that the total intensity of the modes is transformed in a Y-coupler into radiative losses (see above) and this supermode never reaches the threshold [see Eq. (40)]. The distribution of the radiation intensity representing the fundamental supermode is periodically homogeneous along the face A and this includes the outer components of an array, whereas in the far-field diffraction zone the corresponding interference function Ra () is identical with the same function in the conventional theory of diffraction when T is replaced with T 1 [see Eq. (2)]. The interference V V function Rb () differs only slightly from Ra (): = {sin (^/2)/sin ft/2) -2(l-l/V2)cos[(W-l)i/2]}2.
(38)
where the matrix if Q = 6bS. The set of the eigenvalues for T normal modes of the array ( v = 1,2,...,) is found V from the solution of the equation det(Q-a)=0. It follows from Eq. (39) that 1 0 5 (39)
(45)
j [ ( v - l ) / ( / V - l ) ] (/2)}, where v=l,2,...,TV,TV>2.
(40)
Since the vth supermode reaches the lasing threshold at

1274 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19(10), Oct. 1989
A theoretical analysis leads to the following conclusion l 0 3 " 1 0 5 : arrays composed of identical symmetric coupled Y-cut couplers should emit the fundamental supermode and in this case the stability should be high even at high powers because of a periodically homogeneous distribution of the radiation in the near-field zone (compare with NDW,
Goldobineia/. 1274
BDW, and wide-contact BDW arrays discussed in Sec. 1). Experimental investigations of arrays of coupled Y-cut couplers were reported in Refs. 102 and 107-112. It was reported in Ref. 102 that a single coupler made of an (AlGa) As/GaAs heterostructure with a channel in the substrate was investigated. It was found that the radiations emitting from the two branches of the coupler had the same phase. The distribution of the radiation intensity in the farfield zone had one dominant lobe with a half-width of 4 and two smaller lobes on both sides of the main one where the power was up to 65 mW. In this case the emission spectrum consisted of one line, demonstrating strong phase locking. In the case of arrays made of coupled Y-couplers it is very important to ensure good waveguide (radiation) and current confinement in the pumped channels in order to reduce the stray coupling because of an overlap of the electromagnetic fields and because of losses at the branching points and in the fiber waveguide bends, and also to avoid the appearance of modes traveling from a branching point between the waveguides. Such modes were discovered in Refs. 109 and 110 in arrays of Y-couplers with grain-confined waveguides on the basis of the appearance of a second band in the emission spectrum and of additional side groups of lobes in the far-field pattern. A stable angular distribution of the radiation throughout the investigated range of pump currents was reported in Refs. 107 and 108 for arrays with a strong waveguide confinement, which provided an output power up to 400 mW in the pulsed regime and 200 mW in the case of cw operation; the angular distribution consisted of the main central lobe and of two side lobes (Fig. 16). The three-lobe angular distribution was governed by the period and dimensions of the emitting channels (4 and 1.5 , respectively). A single-lobe angular distribution was obtained also" 2 by widening the ends of the waveguides at the exit mirror from 1.5 to 3 keeping the 4- period. This resulted in a single-lobe angular distribution of the radiation and the halfwidth of the lobe was 2.7 (Fig. 17). An array of mesa-stripe coupled Y-couplers with six emitting channels about 7 wide separated by a period of 10 was described in Ref. 111. Generation of the fundamental supermode with a single-lobe angular distribution of the output radiation was obtained in the range of currents (1.2-1.7 ) / t h and in this case the lobe with a half-width of 1. contained up to 50% of all the output power. At higher pump currents the emission became multimode because of a weak waveguide confinement.
FIG. 17. Schematic diagram (a) and the far-field radiation pattern (b) of an array of coupled Y-couplers with broadened waveguide ends obtained when the output radiation power was 75 mW (1) and 150 mW (2).
This theoretical analysis of the operation of phased arrays based on coupled symmetric Y-couplers and the experimental results demonstrate that this configuration may have very promising applications. An improvement in the technology, particularly so as to ensure the homogeneity of the channels and to reduce the losses at the branching points, should (in our opinion) result in a higher output power in a narrow diffraction-limited light beam characterized by a high stability of the spatial characteristics of the radiation and by a single-frequency spectrum. 2.5. Two-dimensional injection laser arrays The configurations of phased arrays discussed above represent essentially one-dimensional monolithic sets of light-emitting components. A natural development aimed to increase further the output power and to form (by an interference method) angular distributions with a low divergence along both angular coordinates is the fabrication of two-dimensional multicomponent phased injection laser arrays. A general theoretical analysis of the formation of the far-field pattern formed by a rectangular array consisting of XN regularly distributed light sources, each of which is characterized by a Gaussian intensity profile, can be found in Ref. 113. It is shown there that if the phased light sources are sufficiently closely packed, the central lobe of the angular distribution may represent up to 80% of the emitted energy, which is close to the theoretical limit for the Fraunhofer diffraction. Construction of such systems of injection lasers requires fabrication of fundamentally new types of structures which would complicate greatly the technological processes. Well before the appearance of the first heterolasers, studies were started of the fabrication of injection lasers with several parallelp-n junctions in order to produce regularly distributed active layers in a resonator of traditional configuration. ' l 4 These investigations were continued also using semiconductor heterostructures The sample described in Ref. 115 consisted of four active layers based on double heterostructures of the (GaAl) As/GaAs system, grown by the liquid phase epitaxial method. The presence of five pairs of alternate/7- and -type layers imparted to this device a dynistor current-voltage characteristic with a turn-on voltage in excess of 9 V. At right-angles to the p-n layers the region of
Goldobine/a/. 1275
i ( rel. units
/, rel. units
-20 -10 10 20
FIG. 16. Near-field (a) and far-field (b) distributions of the radiation obtained for an array of coupled Y-couplers for a radiation output power of 100 mW (1) and 200 mW (2). 1275 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989
localization of the excited supermode was of 4 size, as the corresponding divergence of the output radiation was 36. 2 The threshold current density was 13 kA/cm , so that lasing was possible only in the pulsed regime (characterized by an external quantum efficiency of ~ 4 0 % ) . The main difficulties in the fabrication of such structures are the need for a rigorous reproduction of the parameters of the grown layers and for ensuring effective heat removal. Another method for the formation of two-dimensional monolithic injection laser arrays caused the use of structures with the output radiation at right-angles to the plane of the injecting p-n junction (substrate). Different types of such structures, misleadingly called surface-emitting, had been under intense scrutiny for the last few years. A description of four types of surface-emitting InP/(InGa) AsP heterolasers with a so-called vertical resonator were described in Refs. 116 and 117. Their common features were extremely short resonators (7-8), high (close to 100%) reflection coefficients of the mirrors, and their orientation parallel to the heterolayers, i.e., they performed essentially a combination of the functions of contacts and mirrors. The configuration of one of such structures is shown in Fig. 18 by way of example. The active regions had a diameter of the order of 10 and the thickness was 1.5-2 . The energy and characteristics of these lasers are not yet very exciting: the minimum threshold currents are 35-60 mA at 77 and the minimum working temperature is 21 C, whereas a typical output power is 0.5 mW. It has been reported that two-dimensional monolithic arrays of such layers separated by a step of 1 mm have been constructed. It is doubtful whether such monolithic arrays can be constructed with a denser packing. Another widely used configuration of surface-emitting lasers has etched grooves cutting the active layer and used to couple out the radiation at right-angles to the p-n junction; one vertical wall of a groove acts as a resonator mirror and the other (oriented at an angle of 45 to the former) behaves as a rotatable mirror (Fig. 19)." s Grooves with this profile were formed by two-stage chemical etching and a subsequent mass-transport reaction or by precision etching using a focused ion beam. A reflecting coating was then deposited on rotatable mirrors by directional evaporation. The characteristics of a 16-component array ( 4 x 4 ) of such lasers, in the form of buried mesa (InGa)PAs/InP structures with the active layer cross section 20.2 and a resonator length of 150 , were reported in Ref. 119. The spatial
FIG. 18. Structure of a two-dimensional array of surface-emitting lasers with a "vertical" resonator: 1) -type InP substrate; 2) p-type GalnAsP + active layer; 3) />-type InP; 4) transparent p -type GalnAsP contact layer; 5) SiCK; 6) mirrors; 7) ring contact.
period of the regions from which radiation was coupled out amounted to 254 along both coordinates and there was no optical coupling between the components. The total output power in the cw regime was 0.27 W when the pump current was 1 A. A 22-component array (11x2) based on (GaAl) As double heterostructures with a three-layer waveguide and a quantum-well active layer yielded an output power of 1.6 W (Ref. 12). Active elements with the contact stripes 5 wide, isolated by proton bombardment, were distributed in steps of 150 (Ref. 19) which also avoided phase locking. A similar 112-component array was described in Ref. 121 and it generated cw radiation with an output power up to 0.7 W. Similar surface-emitting structures were used in Refs. 122 and 123 to couple out radiation of multicomponent phased arrays. In contrast to a traditional resonator with cleaved faces, these structures had a slightly higher (by about 10%) lasing threshold and a somewhat broader angular distribution. An array based on separateconfinement (GaAl) As double heterostructures, consisting of 11 active stripes 3- wide distributed in steps of 6 , generated stably a single two-lobe supermode until the threshold was exceeded by a factor of 2. The output power was in excess of 100 mW. A similar array containing a diffraction-coupled region, which ensured in-phase lasing of all the components, had an angular distribution with one principal maximum with the divergence of about 4, which was approximately twice as large as the diffraction limit. Unfortunately, surface-emitting structures of this type could not be used to provide optical coupling between active elements or multielement arrays located on either side of the output grooves, unless external optical devices were used; this
FIG. 19. Structure of a two-dimensional array of surfaceemitting lasers with local rotatable mirrors; 1) active layer; 2) etched resonator mirrors; 3) contact layer (Ni-Ge-Au); 4) contact layer (Cr,Au); 5) proton bombardment region; 6) contact windows; 7) rotatable mirrors; 8) Si,N 4 .
1276
Goldobineia/.
1276
would make it difficult to construct high-power phased twodimensional light sources. A semiconductor laser of the surface-emitting type was first constructed using a diffraction grating deposited on the 24 25 surface of the active waveguide.' '' The grating lines were perpendicular to the axis of the conventional laser resonator formed by cleaved end faces of a crystal. The Bragg reflection in a waveguide with periodically varying optical parameters (usually with a corrugated boundary) characterized by d = MX /2n* (d is the corrugation period, is the radiation wavelength, n* is the effective refractive index of the waveguide mode, and is an integer) ensured a positive spectrally selective radiative feedback, so that there was no need for a traditional resonator. It is usual to distinguish large-optical-cavity lasers in which the optical amplification and Bragg scattering regions are combined, from the lasers with distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs), when the corrugated regons are located at the periphery of the amplification zone. 1 2 6 If is even, then in the case of a DBR laser a grating ensures also coupling of radiation along the normal to the waveguide plane. If we construct a multicomponent laser structure containing regularly alternating regions of amplification and spatially phased DBRs of even orderensuring selective reflection, as well as partial coupling out of the radiation and partial transmission to the next amplifying regionthen such a structure can exhibit phased lasing throughout the amplifying zone. The output power can then be increased and the divergence of the radiation in a plane perpendicular to the grating line can be reduced by increasing the size of the structure. Such a structure was first constructed from an injection GaAs homojunction laser 127 and had been investigated subsequently in the case of heterolasers of different types. A recent paper 1 2 8 described a separate-confinement (GaAl)As double heterostructure consisting of four injecting (amplifying) regions up to 200- long separated by gaps up to 500 from which contact layers were removed by chemical etching and diffraction gratings with a step of 240 nm (M = 2) were formed on the surface of the waveguide layer (Fig. 20a). The emission spectrum was dominated by the ~ 845 nm lasing line coupled by DBRs. The divergence of the radiation, coupled out by a single grating in a plane perpendicular to the lines, was about 0.25. The combined output radiation had a regular fine stucture with a divergence of the individual peaks amounting to 0.05 (Fig. 20b) demonstrating coherent addi-
tion. Unfortunately, it was not reported in Ref. 128 what was the external efficiency of this laser and what was the divergence of the radiation in the orthogonal plane. This divergence was about 10, as in the case of single DBR lasers, and this value was governed by the width of the active channel. The next natural step in the development of a two-dimensional phased injection laser array will be construction of a similar structure not with a single amplifying channel but with multicomponent injection laser arrays oriented at right-angles to the lines of the diffraction gratings formed by DBRs. The characteristic features of light sources of this type and optimization of their parameters would require further theoretical and experimental investigations. Finally, the most effective (although the most complex in respect of the fabrication technology) approach to the solution of the problem in question involves the use of active large-optical-cavity waveguides or those with DBRs characterized by a two-dimensional periodicity. Such structures should ensure both a spectrally selective positive feedback throughout the pumped region without the use of end reflectors as well as distributed coupling of radiation through parts of the waveguide surface on which a diffraction grating has been deposited. We can then use suitably oriented onedimensional diffraction gratings formed on different parts of the surface and a continuous two-dimensional diffraction grating. The feasibility, in principle, to construct such lasers was demonstrated in a number of experiments involving optical' 2 9 1 3 " or injection131 pumping. However, before such light sources with reproducible parameters can be built, it is necessary to investigage in detail the problems of mode conversion as a result of the Bragg scattering in waveguides with a two-dimensional periodicity, the spatial homogeneity of the waveguide and two-dimensional grating parameters, the profile of a two-dimensional grating ensuring the optimal ratio between the amplitudes of the scattering in a closed mode circulating in the waveguide and the scattering into outer space, development of technological methods for the fabrication of two-dimensional diffraction gratings with a given profile on the surfaces of semiconductor crystals of different types and orientations, etc. 2.6. Dynamics of emission from integrated injection laser arrays The dynamics of emission has been investigated in the greatest detail for a "unit cell" of an injection laser array, representing a system of two optically coupled lasers oriented parallel to one another.'3 2 ~' 3 9 Monolithic samples of such unit cells are fabricated by the same technology as multicomponent arrays. When the injecting contacts of the lasers are isolated, which makes it possible to control the rate of injection independently, the properties of such a cell are in many respects similar to the properties of a familiar twocomponent laser in which isolated injection regions are distributed consecutively in a shared resonator. Depending on the ratio of the injection currents, coupled parallel injection lasers can be operated in the following specific ways: abrupt switching of the output power, accompanied by spectral switching controlled by an electric field or an external optical field; bistability manifested by a hysteresis loop of the watt-ampere characteristic; self-modulated frequency-tunable pulsations. A special feature of such cells or devices is that these dynamic processes are accompanied by switching
Goldobinefa/. 1277
0.2 * b FIG. 20. Structure of a sample (a) and far-field radiation pattern (b) of a multicomponent injection laser with distributed Bragg reflectors: 1) distributed Bragg reflectors; 2) contact area; 3) amplifying (injecting) region. 1277 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19(10), Oct. 1989
between different supermodes and a corresponding spatial redistribution in the near- and far-field zones. A system of two coupled parallel injection lasers with different resonator lengths 140 is characterized by a high spectral selectivity, which ensures single-frequency lasing in a wide range of injection currents. The dynamics of spectral tuning is analogous to that in lasers with consecutively arranged C3 (cleaved-coupled-cavity) lasers. Similar active elements, discussed in greater detail in a review in Ref. 141 are of practical interest for various kinds of optoelectronic data-handling systems. It has been suggested that they could be used as transmitters in fiber-optic communication lines, as logic elements, etc. Multicomponent injection laser arrays with a shared contact have dynamic characteristics of their integral output power basically similar to the characteristics exhibited by ordinary homogeneously excited injection lasers. Perturbation theory is used in Ref. 142 to calculate the reaction of a multicomponent system of coupled lasers to an alternating perturbation of its steady state. An analytic solution is obtained in the case of a two-component system. The amplitude-frequency and frequency modulation characteristics are qualitatively similar to the corresponding characteristics of a single injection laser." The quantitative result depends strongly on the parameters representing coupling of the components and the effective spectral broadening factor. An experimental investigaiton of pulse amplitude modulation of a seven-component array of (GaAl)As heterojunction lasers with separate confinement, grown on a profile of the substrate, was reported in Ref. 143. Symmetric variation of the gap between the components (when the distance between the axes of the active channels at the center of the array was 7 and only 4 at the edges) resulted in generation of a mode with a symmetric single-lobe angular distribution of the output radiation. The emission spectrum was found to be dominated by one longitudinal mode. The attention in this experimental study was concentrated on the dependence of fluctuations of the pulse power and of the spectral composition of the radiation on the repetition frequency of modulating current pulses of 5 ns duration. An increase in the repetition frequency to 100 MHz (with an off-duty factor 2) increased the number of generated longitudinal modes and the scatter of the peak powers. A transit characteristic of an injection laser array, i.e., the reaction to a step of an injection current with a fairly steep front, usually includes damped relaxational pulsations of frequency amounting to a few gigahertz and dependent on the excess above the threshold. An investigation of a tencomponent array with separation of the components by proton implantation established144 that an increase in the amplitude of the current pulses (with the leading edge of 0.6 ns) from 1.3/th to 2/ l h increased the frequency of relaxational pulsations from 1.7 to 4.0 GHz, in satisfactory agreement with the familiar relationship/. = (l/2ir)[(rphTe)"'(// Ah D ] 1 / 2 when the photon and electron lifetimes were r p h = 0.4 ps and re = 1.9 ns, respectively. Active mode locking in a ten-component array with a spatial period of 9 , based on a multilayer quantum-well (GaAl)As heterostructure, was reported in Ref. 145. The angular distribution of the radiation in the p-n junction plane was in the form of two symmetric lobes of width , tilted by + 3 from the normal to the end face of a crystal.
1278 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19(10), Oct. 1989
At, ps
too 9
e
90 70 50
0.5
1.0 P,W
FIG. 21. Dependences of the pulse durations in the case of mode locking on the microwave ( / = 95 MHz) signal power for a laser array without an antireflection coating of the end face (/ l h = 2 1 0 mA) (1-3) and with an antireflection coating (7 l h = 2 7 5 m A ) (4-6) obtained using the following values of the current I (mA): 1) 250; 2) 300; 3) 400; 4) 325; 5) 350; 6) 400.
An external resonator was formed by a microobjective and a metal mirror was located at 15 cm from the end face of the array. A synchronizing microwave signal of 950 MHz frequency, corresponding to the round-trip time for the external resonator, was applied to a 50- strip line and superimposed on the constant injection current Io. Figure 21 shows the dependences of the duration of the light pulses, measured by an autocorrelation method using second harmonic generation, on a constant injection current and on the power of a microwave signal. The upper family of curves in Fig. 21 was obtained for an array with cleaved end faces, whereas the lower was obtained in the case when the end facing the external mirror was antireflection-coated (residual reflection 2%). The minimum recorded pulse duration was 61 ps. The average output power was 70 mW, corresponding to a peak of 1.1 W. These pulse durations were typical of single modelocked injection lasers in the absence of saturable absorption. The same array was also investigated146 by direct modulation with current pulses of 150 mA amplitude applied at a repetition frequency of 960 MHz and of half-width duration 75 ps, which was superimposed on a constant injection current obeying / 0 > / t h . Right up to a current of 7() = 350 mA~1.51/ t h the laser response was a regular sequence of single optical pulses with the output power falling to the spontaneous background level in the intervals between the pulses. The dependence of the duration of the output pulses on Io was determined (Fig. 22). Trains of pulses with a profile strongly dependent on the modulation frequency were observed in the range / > 350 mA and the pulsation frequen-
FIG. 22. Dependence of the pulse duration on the constant component of the injection current (/,h = 240 mA). Goldobinefa/. 1278
cy was 3-5 GHz. The peak power, calculated allowing for the average power, reached 0.8 W, which was at least an order of magnitude higher than the value expected from the static watt-ampere characteristic for the same amplitude of the modulating pulses. A theoretical analysis of such amplitude modulation was carried out by the authors of that paper on the basis of the familiar system of rate equations relating the phonon density to the density of nonequilibrium carriers in an injection laser and using parameters typical of quantum-well heterostructures. In many practical applications of phased injection laser arrays the spatial dynamics plays a decisive role, i.e., a redistribution in the near- and far-field zones as a result of amplitude and modulation of the current is the dominant effect. A detailed theory of these processes allowing for the characteristic features of the mode composition in the case of arrays of different type is not yet available. The results of the various experimental investigations demonstrate the complexity and variety of the transient processes which then occur. An image-converter camera had been used to record the time dependences of the radiation intensity of each of the components of a ten-component array and of each of the three main lobes of the angular distribution when an array was excited by current pulses of 50 ns duration with a 0.6 ns leading edge. 147 A scanning avalanche photodiode and a sampling oscilloscope (with a time resolution of 100 ps) were used 144 to record the evolution of the far-field pattern of the radiation emitted by a ten-component NDW array excited by nanosecond current pulses with a leading edge of 1.0 ns. It was found that the characteristic phase-locking time of radiation from the individual components did not exceed 100 ps. Within one pulsation pulse the intensities of the radiation emitted by the individual components were strongly correlated and streak patterns obtained for different pulses showed that the degree of correlation fell rapidly away from the leading edge, and even the streak patterns averaged over a large number of pulses also exhibited a correlation (Fig. 23a). This was also true of streak patterns obtained for different lobes of the angular distribution (Fig. 23b) and in the course of the transient process it was found that switching between the various array supermodes took place (Fig. 24). The results obtained show that much work is still to be done on the optimization of dynamic parameters of phased injection laser arrays, depending on their intended application.
tins
FIG. 24. Evolution of the far-field radiation pattern (obtained for pulses of 10 ns duration).
2.7. Thermal problems in the operation of injection laser arrays A considerable thermal power is released during operation of phased injection laser arrays in the most interesting (from the practical point of view) case of cw lasing. A local increase in the temperature alters the distribution of the effective refractive index in an array. This effect influences less the operation of BDW arrays, whereas in the case of NDW lasers it may affect strongly the mode composition of the output radiation. It is shown in Ref. 40 that the heat released in the active regions of an NDW array alters the nature of the distribution of the radiation intensity in the near- and farfield zones; this is true of all the array modes and it increases strongly the amplification of the modes of higher orders (Fig. 25). The thermal effects largely determine the radiative characteristics of NDW arrays and should be allowed for in the analysis of their operation. A calculation was reported 148 of the efficiency of laser arrays as a function of the thermal resistance of such a system, series electrical resistance, characteristic temperature (coefficient in the argument of the exponential function representing the temperature dependence of the threshold current), reflection coefficients of the mirror, and output power. Importance of the reduction in the thermal resistance in order to ensure effective operation of an array at high output radiation powers was demonstrated in Ref. 148.
f -
- G, rel. units J\J\S~*
70
10 i
?,ns
t.ns 12
16 IS
b FIG. 23. Time dependences (obtained using an image-converter camera) of the intensity of the radiation emitted by the separate injection lasers in a 10-component array (a) and the three main lobes of the angular distribution (b) (averaging over 20 pulses, / = 1.3/,h, time resolution 22 ps). 1279 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989
FIG. 25. Influence of temperature on the modal gain experienced by higher supermodes in the case when the temperature rise was = 0 (1) and 10C (2). Goldobineia/. 1279
l-r, c/w o.s

perature variations between the separate components, in spite of the fact of the somewhat strong heating of the grating as a whole. 2.8. Control of the radiation emitted by injection laser arrays using external optical devices
/ : , , , '
3 2 1
'.
3 2 1
0,2
FIG. 26. Profile of the distribution of the temperature rise on the heattransfer surface and the difference between the temperatures of adjacent components when the electrical power was 1 W (half of a symmetric distribution is shown) at the center of a stripe contact (), at the center of a waveguide strip subjected to homogeneous pumping (continuous contact ) ( ) , the average value over the length of the stripe contact ( | ) , and over the length of the homogeneously pumped waveguide ( ) : 1) center of the array; 2) edge of the array; is the laser diode number.
In an array of injection lasers the middle components are under less favorable thermal conditions than the components at the edges, where heat transfer is more effective. A calculation of the temperature distribution on the surface of a semiinfinite copper heat sink (the presence of which is usually assumed, in injection laser models) and the difference between the temperatures of the adjacent components of laser arrays with between 10 and 40 components, described in Refs. 49 and 53, was made 1 4 9 for the cw case (Fig. 26). In the case of a 10-component array the temperature rise due to the electrical power delivered to the system did not exceed 10 C/W at the center of the heat-transfer surface, whereas the difference between the temperatures of the adjacent components was 0.7 C/W. An increase in the temperature of the heat-transfer surface limited seriously the capabilities of achieving high output radiation power from injection laser arrays. An even greater influence of phaselocking of the ouput radiation is exerted by the differences between the temperatures of the array components. Bearing in mind that, as shown in Ref. 2, phase locking of radiation from two lasers is possible if the difference 2 between the emission wavelengths does not exceed 7 2-wnL (where is the effective refractive index, L is the resonator length, and ' is the degree of overlap of the laser fields) and assuming that = 0.83 , L = 250 , = 3.5, and that the temperature drift of the emission line 0.3 nm/ C, we find that even if ' = 1, the maximum difference between the temperatures of the adjacent lasers in the case of phased addition of the radiation should not exceed 0.4 C. According to Fig. 26 the temperature variations between all lasers (apart from those at the ends) in the case of a ten-component array do not exceed this value when the electrical power is up to 0.96 W. The differential quantum efficiency of 17% reported in Ref. 49 corresponds to the optical power limit of 160 mW, in good agreement with the experimental results. It is thus shown that the use of a semiinfinite heat sink prevents the attainment of a high output power from phased arrays because of the difference between the temperatures of the components. It is suggested in Ref. 149 that heat sinks of special (pyramidal or wedge) shapes should be used in laser arrays. Such heat sinks can reduce considerably the tem1280 Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989
The limited space does not allow us to discuss in detail nonintegral methods for phase-locked addition of the radiation from injection lasers. We shall list here the main methods of such addition with the aid of external devices. 1. Use of a master single-mode laser emitting radiation 150 155 coupled into a grating. ~ In this case the tuning of the master laser radiation to the frequency of the lowest supermode of an array can ensure a stable emission of the supermode. 2. The use of an external resonator for the correction of spectral and spatial characteristics of the radiation emitted 156 161 by laser arrays is practiced. ~ Stable lasing in the form of the fundamental supermode is then achieved as a result of selective feedback (the use of a diffraction grating or of Fabry-Perot etalons'5*) or supermodes may be selected by means of spatial filters.157160161 3. Use of phase correction of the wavefront in the farfield zone 1 6 2 " 1 6 4 in order to achieve a single-lobe angular distribution of the output radiation. 4. Coherent addition of laser radiation in multimode waveguides can also be achieved. We shall now consider the methods described above in somewhat greater detail. If the effective dimensions of the transverse cross section of a waveguide exceed considerably the output radiation wavelength, waves of a multitude of modes, differing in respect of the transverse structure of the field and phase velocities, may form. Regular interference of the coherent fields of the different modes makes it possible to achieve in multimode waveguides certain types of transfer and transformation of complex waveguide structures (images). 1 6 5 1 6 6 The mechanism of these effects is: physical realization of mathematical operations of expansion of a complex wave structure (image), excited in a certain initial section of the waveguide, as a series in terms of the eigenfunctions of the waveguide problem; transfer of data on the amplitudes and phases of each of the terms by waves of the corresponding modes in a section remote from the front of the system; finally, superposition synthesis in this section of a new waveguide structure of nature governed by the distance from the initial cross section. A particular example of such a process is the reconstructure in some remote section of the initial wave structure, i.e., transfer of the original image along a multimode waveguide. In the case of planar and rectangular waveguides this occurs in what are known as cophasal (phase-locked) sections repeated along the waveguide lengths in steps of AZC = 322/, where la is the effective width of a waveguide, is the refractive index, and is the output radiation wavelength. There are also replication sections at points AZm = AZcs/8r (s and r are integers which are prime relative to one another), in which the initial image splits into an array of sXr identical images distributed regularly over the transverse cross section or, conversely, an array of such coherently excited images merges into one (with a corresponding addition of the field intensities).
Goldobinefa/. 1280
These properties make it possible to use multimode waveguides in a variety of systems for coherent addition of signals from semiconductor laser oscillators and ampli167 fiers. An experimental demonstration of the possibility of coupling two injection homojunction lasers by a planar mul167 timode waveguide was made by the transfer of the image of a light-emitting region of a master oscillator to the entry face of a second laser diode used as a regenerative amplifier. A regenerative gain of about 10 was attained in a hollow metal waveguide with a diameter 2a = 62 ; the wavelength was = 0.84//m and the position of a cophasal section was AZC 4.6 mm. An analysis was also made of the operation of a pile of injection lasers located in a multimode waveguide at replication distances in such a way that a single light-emitting system was formed and the coherence of the generation of oscillations was ensured by a shared master oscillator or a local reflector, which was also located at a replication distance. There is an analogy between the transfer of images along a multimode waveguide and the Talbot effect168 in which images are reconstructed at a certain distance from a plane carrying a regular array of identical luminous objects. In the waveguide case the role of this array is played by multiple reflections of the initial image by the waveguide walls. This leads to an analogy between a successful experiment l 6 g involving coherent addition of oscillations, generated in several carbon dioxide lasers emitting at 10.6//m, with the aid of exit mirrors located at the positions in a Talbot array, on the one hand, and the coherent laser systems employing multimode waveguides, on the other. If a multimode waveguide is formed into a resonator, the oscillations of the individual modes, representing independent degrees of freedom of the system, can be regarded as oscillations of independent lasers. Since the total volume of such a multimode resonator is considerably greater than the volume of ordinary laser resonators, an attempt to achieve coherent coupling of oscillations of the individual modes in a large resonator can be used essentially to perform the same task of increasing the total power as coherent addition of radiation from individual lasers. A theoretical solution of this problem 170 reduces to the formation of a supermode of a large resonator and the supermode can be regarded as a selectively organized superposition of partial modes of the multimode system. The selection ensuring a single shared oscillation frequency of the coupled modes (i.e., the degeneracy of these modes) and a fixed common phase involves introduction in some way of strong attenuation in those parts of the volume of a large resonator where the supermode fields are absent and the fields of all the other undesired superposition configurations are not zero. In the simplest case of a waveguide resonator this can be done by placing an absorbing mask with a transparent or reflecting window in a section where the fields of the modes of the selected frequency have a sharp maximum in the interference pattern, i.e., where an image is formed. 3. MONOLITHIC INJECTION LASER ARRAYS WITH NONCOHERENT ADDITION OF RADIATION The use of injection lasers for pumping YAG:Nd lasers is currently attracting much interest. A narrow emission spectrum, a high efficiency, and a fairly narrow (compared
with flashlamps or LEDs) angular distribution of the injection laser radiation make it possible to increase considerably the efficiency of solid-state lasers and to reduce their dimensions. Semiconductor laser arrays are used more and more frequently as such pump sources. Phased addition of the radiation from the individual components of an array is not essential, but what is important is the density of the optical power per unit emitting area and the total optical power. It was reported in Ref. 171 that a solid-state YAG:Nd laser with an output power up to 80 mW was constructed; it was pumped by a laser array generating continuously 220 mW with an external efficiency of 22%. The overall efficiency of the solid-state laser was 8%, which is at present a record value. High-power pump sources for solid-state lasers can be in the form of the same monolithic laser arrays that were described in the preceding sections, but the number of components can be larger. It was reported in Ref. 172 that an optical output power of 11 W was obtained from a laser source emitting long (150-/zs) pulses with duration of the same order as the lifetime of the excited states in neodymium-doped garnet crystals. This source was a crystal where in a region of 1 cm size there were 20 phased 10component NDW arrays separated by a spacing of 0.5 mm and similar to those described in Ref. 50. The presence of extended absorbing regions between the individual arrays prevented amplification of spontaneous radiation propagating at right-angles to the stripe contacts and at angles (relative to the mirrors) greater than the total-internal-reflection angle. The threshold current for the whole system was 4 A and at 17.3 A the output power was 11 W corresponding to an efficiency of ~20%. A monolithic radiation source with an output power of 25 W generating 150-jUS pulses was described in Ref. 14. A crystal of 1 cm size contained 20 arrays each consisting of 40 stripe NDW lasers separated by grooves 100- wide etched in a heterostructure and subjected to proton bombardment, which suppressed formation of modes closed within the crystal. The highest output radiation power density was reported in Ref. 13. A 1-mm crystal contained a homogeneous array of 100-140 stripe lasers. Suppression of closed modes within the crystal was ensured by just four narrow regions between the stripe contacts. A cw optical power of 5.4 W generating an efficiency of 36% was achieved. The authors of Ref. 13 forecast that the service life of such arrays emitting 1-W radiation should be between 2000 and 4000 h. An original approach to the construction of a laser array ensuring a high intensity in the far-field zone was proposed in Ref. 173. It was shown there that when lasers with a random selection of phases were distributed in accordance with a geometric progression, the distribution of the intensity in the far-field zone had, under the worst radiation-addition conditions, side lobes comparable in intensity with the central lobe obtained in the case of phased addition. The relative intensity of the side lobes under the worst radiationaddition conditions decreased somewhat on increase in the number of components, but it rose strongly when the denominator of the geometric progression q was increased, so that for q = 5 the intensity in the side lobe reached 90% of the intensity gained in the central lobe in the phased addition case. This reduced also the width of the side lobes. Such a
Goldobineia/. 1281
result was obtained by ensuring equality of the laser radiation wavelengths and the stability of their phases with time. The same principle could be used to construct a two-dimensional laser array. The proposed laser array with a random distribution of phases can in our opinion be also useful in a number of other practical applications. Experimental studies are essential to confirm the theoretical results predicted in Ref. 173 and it would be necessary to optimize the design specifically to fit semiconductor structures. These results demonstrate extensive opportunities that the use of laser arrays with random (nonlocked) distribution of phases can provide. The extremely high output powers in combination with high efficiencies and small dimensions of such arrays make them suitable not only for pumping solid-state lasers, but also in lidar and optical illumination systems, high-speed photography, and other practical applications.
CONCLUSIONS
It follows from our review that in the last decade of intensive research on monolithic injection laser arrays, both phased and noncoherent, has provided an understanding to what extent the various physical properties and parameters influence the technical characteristics of such arrays. The focus in the technology of ordinary injection lasers has been accompanied by improvements in the array structure. The output power now available (~0.5 W for a diffraction-limit divergence of the radiation from phased arrays and ~ 10 W in the form of cw or quasi-cw radiation in the case of noncoherent arrays) has been achieved primarily by improvements in laser heterostructures, resulting in a major reduction of the threshold current density (which can be now less than 100 A/cm 2 ) involving the use of ultrathin active layers and separate optical and electron confinement. Commerical manufacture of light sources made of monolithic injection laser arrays has begun in recent years. The range of available types of array is increasing continuously. A comparative analysis of their technical characteristics and the problems of their practical applications in systems designed for various purposes deserves a separate review. All that we have said applies to one-dimensional injection laser arrays. Very attractive opportunities will arise when two-dimensional phased injection laser arrays become available since only the first steps in this direction have been made so far. There are still many unresolved problems which are scientific, design, and technological. The authors are grateful to L. A. Rivlin for valuable discussions and helpful filling of gaps in our knowledge, and to S. V. Yastrebov for his help in the preparation of the manuscript.
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Phase-Locked Integrated Arrays of Injection Lasers Ch2

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Phase-locked integrated arrays of injection lasers

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REVIEW Phase-locked integrated arrays of injection lasers

where is a square XN matrix and

(x,y) exp (/),

where is the serial number of the array mode; the index t

tions of the supermodes R 24 are described by

() [compare with Eq. (2) ]

is defined by the equation

- ip2w) +2)2 2 - (/ -P2) exp(;> 2 w)],

for an NDW array and on the assumption that

'12= (Vi/H)"' exp( -ipts)(p22

X [exp (ip2w) exp( ip2w)],

Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989

F rel. units V=f ,

Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19(10), Oct. 1989

4-nnnruL "tjinnnrL 4Jinnnn__

2.2. Phased arrays with inhomogeneously emitting channels

/ 0 1/V2 0 \ so = ( 1/V2 0 1/V2 ). \ 0 I/V2 0 /

X rel. units Face A IN-2

0 1/V2 0 1/V2 0 1/2 0 0 1/2 0 1/2 0 1/2

0 1/2 0 1/2 0 1/V2 0 1/V 0

j [ ( v - l ) / ( / V - l ) ] (/2)}, where v=l,2,...,TV,TV>2.

Since the vth supermode reaches the lasing threshold at

Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989

- G, rel. units J\J\S~*

l-r, c/w o.s

Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 19 (10), Oct. 1989

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