Diode Laser Arrays With High Power In The 4 To 5 μm Infrared Region

We have fabricated monolithic four-element diode laser arrays of PbS09Se01, emitting 100 mW of cw power per array end at 4 A in the 4 to 5µm spectral region. Corresponding to an external quantum efficiency of 20%, these arrays demonstrate the feasibility of upscaling output power levels by the parallelization of stripe-geometry diode lasers on a single crystal wafer. Such high power arrays are useful in applications that require high illumination levels in very narrow spectral ranges. By varying the material type and composition, any emitting region between approximately 4 and 8µm can be obtained with this material system.