Diode Lasers

an overview
William J. Wadsworth 1994
1: Introduction
The diode laser is rapidly becoming an indispensable device in modern liIe. It is present in the
domestic CD player, in optical communications, laser printers, laser pointers, and oI course in
the laboratory. The attraction oI diode lasers over all other types oI laser is their extreme
compactness, and ease oI operation. The diodes themselves have sub-millimetre dimensions, and
their high eIIiciency means that they have small power supplies. For example a 10 mW diode
laser might require 100 mW oI electrical power, easily provided by a battery, whereas a gas laser
such as a He-Ne laser would require 10 W, and thus must be mains powered. At the high power
end the diIIerences are even more stark. A 40 W copper vapour laser, one oI the most eIIicient
gas lasers, needs 5 kW oI electrical power. This means using a three phase supply. By contrast a
40 W diode array might require 200 W oI electrical power, less than an average computer
supply. Thus the high eIIiciency not only reduces the energy costs oI running the lasers, but also
dramatically reduces the size, cost, and complexity oI the associated power supplies.
Diode lasers are also very user Iriendly, being readily packaged as devices with one button
control, and they may have liIetimes oI thousands oI hours in low stress applications. At present
the uses oI laser diodes are limited by their low maximum powers, their susceptibility to optical
and electrical damage, and the limited range oI wavelengths available. Improvements are
continually being made on all three points.
2: Origins
Towards the middle oI this century, stimulated emission was Iirst used to create coherent
radiation in the microwave region oI the spectrum. This Microwave AmpliIication by the
Stimulated Emission oI Radiation ( MASER ) was soon seen to be a very important development
as a source oI electromagnetic radiation. It was not Ior some years, however, that optical
MASERs, later called LASERs, were theoretically predicted|1| then experimentally realised.
The Iirst laser, built in 1960 by Maiman|2| at Hughes aircraIt company was a ruby laser,
employing coiled Ilashlamps Ior the pump energy source. Diode lasers Iollowed in November
1962, but it was not until the early seventies that robust commercial devices were possible, and a
Iurther ten years elapsed beIore the diode laser Iinally showed its potential in mass markets. This
slow development Iollowed by blossoming into a mass use device, contrasts sharply with the
development oI gas and solid state lasers. These relatively rapidly Iound their way into research
laboratories as a wide range oI experiments were designed which took advantage oI the unique
properties oI LASER radiation. However even aIter thirty years oI development these lasers are
still primarily a tool Ior research, though other applications, Ior example in medicine and
machining, are growing. The unique advantages oI a diode laser, small size and high eIIiciency,
have opened up the mass market in domestic goods, and spurred researchers on through the
many years oI development.
: Development of the diode laser
1 Theory
In making a laser the Iirst requirement is that the medium must emit light. So beIore any attempt
to build a diode laser, the Light Emitting Diode (LED) should be demonstrated. It is necessary
Iirst to examine the mechanisms by which a semiconductor diode junction may emit light.
The simple picture oI the action oI a p-n junction semiconductor diode is shown in Fig 3.1.

Figure 1 The p-n junction
In equilibrium, the charge carriers, excess electrons and holes, are conIined to the n- and p-type
regions respectively by a potential barrier across the junction. When the junction is Iorward
biased by placing an external potential across it, this barrier is reduced and charge carriers are
able to diIIuse across the junction. There are then both holes and excess electrons in the junction
region and recombination can occur. This allows more charge carriers to move into the junction
region to replace those lost in recombination, and an electrical current Ilows. Recombination is
clearly a process in which energy is released as the excess electrons Iall down across the band
gap to Iill the holes. It might be expected that this energy would be emitted as a photon, giving a
light emitting diode. This process does occur in some semiconductors such as gallium arsenide
(GaAs), but in others such as silicon, the energy is lost as heat.
The reason Ior the very diIIerent behaviour oI silicon and GaAs is that the recombination must
conserve both energy and momentum. Fig 3.2 shows schematically the energy-momentum
relations Ior electrons and holes in silicon and gallium arsenide (momentum is expressed as a
wavenumber)

Figure 2 Indirect and Direct gap semiconductors
In equilibrium, the charge carriers occupy their lowest energy states, electrons at the bottom oI
the conduction band, and holes at the top oI the valence band. In silicon these states do not have
the same momentum. ThereIore iI a recombination is to result in the emission oI a photon, which
has little momentum, a quantum oI lattice vibration (a phonon) must also be created to carry
away the excess momentum. This is known as an indirect process and such semiconductors are
known as INDIRECT GAP semiconductors. The two particle process is not Iavoured, and
recombinations in indirect gap semiconductors usually occur by thermal or collisional processes.
The silicon chips in a computer do not glow, they just get warm.
GaAs however is a DIRECT GAP semiconductor. The minima oI electron and hole energies
occur at the same momentum. Thus recombination can result in a photon alone. LED action was
Iirst observed in GaAs in 1952. The light is emitted in a narrow range oI wavelengths which is
determined by the size oI the band gap oI the semiconductor. The red, green and yellow LEDs
available today are made using semiconductor compounds with diIIerent band gaps, Ior example
GaAs, GaAlAs, AlInGaP, GaAsP.
The LED must satisIy two more conditions beIore it is possible to make a laser diode. Firstly
stimulated emission must be able to dominate over absorbtion and spontaneous emission, and
secondly there must be an optical cavity. Fortunately both are relatively simple to achieve. The
population inversion required Ior stimulated emission to dominate is realised by increasing the
current through the diode. This increases the density oI electron-hole pairs in the junction region,
and thus creates an inversion. The optical cavity is made by cleaving the crystal along two
parallel crystal planes, perpendicular to the junction plane. This creates optically Ilat and parallel
surIaces. They do not need to be coated to act as laser mirrors as the high reIractive index oI
GaAs gives the GaAs-air interIace a reIlectivity oI 35 which is Iound to give suIIicient
Ieedback to sustain laser action. The structure oI the basic diode laser is shown in Iig. 3.3.

Figure The basic diode laser (Irom Schawlow 1963)
2 Early problems
The simple devices described in the previous section had very high threshold currents oI 50,000
to 100,000 A/cm2. Even with the sub-millimetre dimensions typical oI these devices this still
translates to device currents oI up to 50 A. The associated heating oI devices run at these very
high currents required cooling in liquid nitrogen, and even then only pulsed operation oI the
lasers was possible. To understand this and to see how the threshold current can be reduced we
need to discuss what the threshold current is. It is the current required to give a suIIicient
population inversion Ior the round trip gain in the cavity to be greater than the round trip loss.
The gain may be increased by improving the Ilatness oI the junction. In a rough junction any
particular part oI the laser beam will only pass through the gain region oI the junction Ior a
Iraction oI the length oI the crystal. The round trip gain will clearly be greater in a Ilat junction
where the beam can be in the gain region Ior the Iull length oI the crystal. The junction Ilatness
was improved by the development oI new growth techniques Ior the junctions. Instead oI making
the junction by diIIusing acceptor impurities (such as tin) into an n-type crystal to make the top
part p-type, the n-type substrate was polished Ilat and then a p-type layer grown on top Irom a
melt oI p-type material. This epitaxial method gives a junction almost as Ilat as the initial
polished surIace. Losses Irom the cavity occur as photons pass out oI the cavity, both as a useIul
beam and Irom scattering Irom dislocations in the crystal. More careIul growth techniques
improved the crystal quality, reducing dislocations, and along with Ilat junctions this reduced
thresholds to 25,000 to 30,000 A/cm2 and device currents to about 10 A. Though this was a
considerable improvement it was still a large current and Iurther improvements were clearly
necessary.
Heterostructure lasers
A diode laser made Irom a single material such as GaAs has some Iundamental limitations|4|.
Firstly, carriers can diIIuse out oI the junction region, creating a wide gain region which reduces
the round trip gain along any particular path through the crystal. Secondly there is considerable
loss oI light by spontaneous emission perpendicular to the cavity axis. This is particularly
important at threshold as it is the spontaneous photons travelling along the cavity axis and being
reIlected back into the gain region which initiate the laser action. Diodes made up Irom layers oI
diIIerent semiconductors, known as heterostructures, can overcome these natural limits by
conIining the light and the charge carriers to a deIined region oI the diode. The principle oI the
conIinement is shown in Iig 3.4. This shows the two types oI heterojunction used. In each case
the junction is between two semiconductors with diIIering band gaps. In the leIt-hand diagram,
both are p-type. This means that in equilibrium it is the valence band which is equalised across
the junction, leaving a step in the conduction band. The level valence band does not impede the
majority carriers, the holes, but the step in the conduction band presents a barrier to any electrons
diIIusing into this region Irom a conventional n-p junction to the leIt. The right-hand diagram
shows an n-p heterojunction. Here there is a large step in the valence band even under Iorward
bias, which presents a barrier to the diIIusion oI holes out oI the junction region. Fig 3.5 shows
how this may be used in single and double heterostructures to conIine the carriers to a small
region which is deIined, not by the nature oI the materials, but by the thickness the layers are
grown to. This gives us the ability to deIine a narrow lasing region, about 200nm wide, in which
the gain is concentrated. As well as carrier conIinement, the heterostructures achieve light
conIinement due to the diIIerent reIractive indices oI the diIIerent semiconductors.

Figure Heterojunctions (Irom Panish 1971)
These techniques dramatically reduce the threshold currents to 1000 A/cm2, with device currents
below 1 A|5,6|. This allows the diodes to be run continuously at room temperature. Improved
heat sinking, and thus improved perIormance, may be achieved by placing the electrodes as a
narrow stripe on a wider diode. The heat generated in the diode may then be conducted sideways
out oI the lasing region as well as up and down. A typical diode oI this type reported in 1972 was
capable oI producing 120 mW oI light, continuous wave, at 900nm. The eIIiciency was only 7,
which is Iar Irom the theoretical maximum Ior a diode laser, but already two orders oI magnitude
better than a typical gas or solid state laser.
O

Operating Principles oI a Homostructure laser (leIt), a single Heterostructure laser
(middle) and a Double Heterostructure laser (right) are compared in this illustration. In
the homostructure laser electrons (black arrows) are injected across the p-n homojunction
to varying distances into the p region.(Hole injection does 349 become important until
much higher currrent levels are reached.) In the homostructure device light penetrates
into the adjacent material out oI the region where most oI the stimulation is taking place,
causing loss oI light that would otherwise contribute to stimulation. In the
single-heterostructure device the light does not penetrate signiIicantly through the p-p
heterojunction and the electrons are reIlected As a result a higher degree oI
carrier-conIinement and light-conIinement is attained. In the double heterostructure
device holes, electrons and light are all eIIectively conIined in the very thin region
between the two heterojunctions. Electrons are reIlected by the potential barrier in the
conduction band at the p-p heterojunction, and holes are reIlected by the potential barrier
in the valence band at the p-n heterojunction. Light-conIinement results Irom the
diIIerence in reIractive index between the gallium arsenide and the aluminium gallium
arsenide.
Figure Heterostructures (Irom Panish 1971)
: Tailoring to Applications
1 Requirements
Once reliable devices had been developed which could operate continuously at room temperature
they had to be modiIied to suit the many applications which had been proposed. The Iirst major
use envisaged was in optical communications. This is a low power application but requires a
narrow bandwidth close to the transmission peak oI optical Iibres at 1.55 mm. Small size is also
important. A diode laser Ior use in a compact disc player is not required to have a particularly
narrow bandwidth but it must have good spatial beam quality and be oI short wavelength so that
it can be Iocused to a small diIIraction limited spot. Diode lasers usea in recent applications in
the pumping oI solid state lasers are required to deliver very high power oI 1 to 100 W, but with
little requirement Ior either narrow bandwidth or good beam quality.
2 Line narrowing
A Iree running diode laser has a bandwidth oI 1 to 10 nm. This is owing to the distribution oI the
holes and excess electrons in the levels oI the valence and conduction bands. II one surIace oI the
diode is antireIlection coated, then an external end mirror may be used and all types oI dispersive
elements inserted to reduce the laser bandwidth. This type oI external cavity is the same as
would be used in a solid state or dye laser. A development oI this is the Cleaved Coupled Cavity,
or C3 laser|7,8|. The design is shown in Iig 4.1. The tuning mechanism is essentially the same as
an intracavity etalon, but with important practical diIIerences: i ) The etalon is a second laser, so
the gain region can still Iill the entire cavity, which keeps the threshold low. ii ) The cavities
have similar lengths, so only there will be only one mode overlap in the gain proIile oI the diode,
and no Iurther wavelength selection is needed. iii ) The device is manuIactured Irom a single
crystal, which is then cleaved in the middle. The bottom electrode is leIt intact so the two halves
are kept in perIect alignment automatically.
O
Alignment oI two lasers composes the C3 laser. The halI lasers have diIIerent lengths;
hence their resonant wavelengths are diIIerently spaced and only a Iew oI them match.
The mismatches are supressed. Among the matches, moreover, only one is near the peak
gain. Thus the beam oI a C3 laser consists oI that wavelength almost exclusively. The
probability oI the beam's jumping to another wavelength is less than one in 10 bilion
samplings.
Figure 1 The CleavedCoupled Cavity laser (Irom Tsang 1984)
The laser may be tuned across the gain proIile oI the diode by using the relationship between
current and reIractive index in a diode below lasing threshold. Current 2 can be set above
threshold to cause that section to lase. A small current 1 may then be applied to the other section.
The magnitude oI current 1 will then determine the reIractive index oI that section and hence the
mode spacing. Changing current 1 will tune the comb oI modes Irom section 1 across those oI
section 2 and give overlap on a diIIerent wavelength.
Wavelength selection
The line narrowing and tuning mechanisms can only give wavelengths close to the band gap
energy oI the semiconductor used Ior the laser. GaAs emits at about 900nm; Ior the 1.55 mm
needed Ior communications, or Ior 670nm visible lasers, other semiconductor compounds must
be Iound with the required band gap energies. There are many III-V semiconductors which are
suitable Ior the production oI diode lasers which have extended the range oI commercial devices
now available to wavelengths Irom 600nm to 1.6 mm.
Increased power
Single diode devices have a power limit oI the order oI hundreds oI milliwatts. At higher output
powers the high currents required cause unwelcome heating. For really high power applications
many individual diodes are stacked in arrays. Lenses placed in Iront oI the stack then combine
their outputs into a single beam. As the laser cavities are independent oI each other the spatial
and spectral quality oI such stacks is poor. However it is amply suIIicient Ior pumping solid state
lasers.
Current and future developments
1 Shorter wavelengths
Making laser diodes in the blue region oI the spectrum Irom wide band gap semiconductors is
proving to be very diIIicult. Again the main problem arises Irom high threshold currents and the
associated heating. In wide band gap diodes the heating comes mainly Irom ohmic resistance at
the interIaces between the wide band gap material and either metal electrodes or narrow band
gap substrates. The Iact that the heating is localised worsens its eIIect. There has still been some
success, and (Zn,Cd)Se / Zn(S,Se) heterostructures have been demonstrated|9| with 15 mW
pulsed at 500nm at room temperature and continuous operation at 77 K.
Possibly a more promising route to short wavelengths is nonlinear Irequency conversion oI red
diodes or diode-pumped solid state lasers. Electricity to blue light eIIiciencies oI 1-10 have
been realised by these methods|10,11|, which is small when compared with eIIiciencies oI 40
in red diodes, but is still much better than the alternatives at these wavelengths.
2 Circuit integration
For optical communication between and within computers it is desirable to integrate processing
circuitry and laser diodes onto a single chip. This would greatly increase the speed oI
communications between and within computers and also reduce the total size oI a system by
reducing the number oI chips. The problem here is that it is cheapest and simplest to Iabricate
electronic circuitry Irom silicon, but diode lasers must be made Irom gallium arsenide. This
presents an engineering problem, though not an insurmountable one.
References
|1| A.L. Schawlow and C.H. Townes Physical Review 112,p1940 ( 1958 )
|2|T.H. Maiman Journal oI the Optical society oI America ,p1134 ( 1960 )
|3| A.L.Schawlow ScientiIic American 2,p34 ( 1963 )
|4| M.B. Panish and I. Haysashi ScientiIic American 22,p32 ( 1971 )
|5| M.B. Panish, I. Haysashi and S. Sumski Applied Physics Letters 16,p326 ( 1970 )
|6| Zh.I. AlIerov, V.M. Andreev, V.I. Korol'kov, E.L.Portnoi and D.N. Tret'yakov Soviet
Physics Semiconductors 2,p1289 ( 1969 )
|7| W.T. Tsang, N.A. Olsson, R.A. Logan, R.A. Linke, B.L. Kasper, I.P. Kaminow Journal oI the
Optical society oI America B-Optical Physics 1,p448 ( 1984 )
|8| W.T.Tsang ScientiIic American 21,p127 ( 1984 )
|9| H. Jeon M. Hagerott, J. Ding, A.V. Nurmikko, D.C. Grillo, W. Xie, M. Kobayashi and R.L.
Gunshor Optics Letters 18,p125 ( 1993 )
|10| L.Y. Liu, M. Oka, W. Wiechmann and S. Kubota Optics Letters 1,p189 ( 1994 )
|11| W.J. Kozlovsky and W. Length Optics Letters 1,p195 ( 1994 )

By William wadsworth (1994)