Nearly diffraction limited 980-nm tapered diode lasers with an output power of 7.7 W

High-brightness tapered diode lasers emitting at 980 nm with electrically separated straight ridge waveguide and tapered gain-guided sections were fabricated. An output power of more than 14 W was achieved in quasi-continuous wave (QCW) operation. The value of the beam propagation ratio M/sup 2/ remained below 2 up to a power of 7.7 W if the sections were separately contacted. The vertical beam divergence was 18/spl deg/ (FWHM) only.