Etch-depth dependence of laser diodes using angular filtering by total reflection

High-brightness high-power laser diodes are gaining importance in a wide variety of applications. For direct use as a replacement for solid-state lasers in particular, laser diodes with high output power and good beam quality are necessary. Recently, we presented the realization of a new resonator concept for high brightness laser diodes, the so-called "Z-laser" (Rogg et al, Proc. SPIE vol. 4287, pp. 195-201, 2001). In this paper, we present data on the optimization of the internal reflecting boundaries of these devices.