Beam properties of AlGaAs power lasers with high-quality etched mirrors

High-quality etched mirrors for AlGaAs/GaAs power lasers for applications in optical storage have been fabricated by chemically assisted ion-beam etching (CAIBE). In order to ensure flat mirror facets of the ridge-waveguide lasers, a flared-waveguide end section is used. This results in a very slight mirror roughness of approximately 20 nm across the beam cross section, and yields excellent beam properties allowing diffraction-limited focusing up to 50-mW output power.<
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