High-power narrow-vertical-divergence photonic band crystal laser diodes with optimized epitaxial structure

900 nm longitudinal photonic band crystal (PBC) laser diodes with optimized epitaxial structure are fabricated. With a same calculated fundamental-mode divergence, stronger mode discrimination is achieved by a quasi-periodic index modulation in the PBC waveguide than a periodic one. Experiments show that the introduction of over 5.5 μm-thick PBC waveguide contributes to only 10% increment of the internal loss for the laser diodes. For broad area PBC lasers, output powers of 5.75 W under continuous wave test and over 10 W under quasi-continuous wave test are reported. The vertical divergence angles are 10.5° at full width at half maximum and 21.3° with 95% power content, in conformity with the simulated angles. Such device shows a prospect for high-power narrow-vertical-divergence laser emission from single diode laser and laser bar.