Fiber coupling technology of high brightness blue laser diode

Duan Chengrui; Zhao Pengfei; Wang Xubao; Lin Xuechun

doi:10.12086/oee.2021.200372

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Duan C R, Zhao P F, Wang X B, et al. Fiber coupling technology of high brightness blue laser diode[J]. Opto-Electron Eng, 2021, 48(5): 200372. doi: 10.12086/oee.2021.200372

Citation:

Duan C R, Zhao P F, Wang X B, et al. Fiber coupling technology of high brightness blue laser diode[J]. Opto-Electron Eng, 2021, 48(5): 200372. doi: 10.12086/oee.2021.200372

Fiber coupling technology of high brightness blue laser diode

1.
Institute of Laser Engineering, Faculty of Materials and Manufacturing, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
2.
Laboratory of All-Solid-State Light Sources, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083, China

Fund Project: National Key R & D Fund Projects (2017YFB0405001)

More Information

Corresponding authors: Wang Xubao. E-mail: wangxubao@bjut.edu.cn; Lin Xuechun. E-mail: xclin@semi.ac.cn

Received Date 16 October 2020

Revised Date 18 March 2021

Published Date 15 May 2021

Abstract

Abstract

With the development and application of blue semiconductor lasers, it has become a research hotspot to obtain high brightness blue light source by beam combining technology. In order to obtain high brightness blue light output, 48 single tube semiconductor lasers with wavelength of 450 nm and output power of 3.5 W are focused and coupled into 105 μm/0.22 NA fiber by fast slow axis collimation and spatial beam combination. The blue light with power of 144.7 W and brightness of 11 MW/(cm²·str) is obtained. The coupling efficiency is 93.78%, and the optical to optical conversion efficiency of the whole system is 86.13%.
- blue light /
- high brightness /
- fiber coupling /
- beam combining technology

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References

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Overview

Overview

Overview: Blue laser diodes (LDs) having the advantages of compact construction, long operating lifetime, and short-wavelength are extremely attractive for many applications, such as laser display, material processing, etc. To date, it has become one of the favorable lasers in welding copper-based alloy materials because the blue light absorption rate is 5~12 times greater than that of the near-infrared light for such materials. However, the highest output power of commercialized blue LDs is only 5 W. It cannot be used directly in laser welding unless the needed high-power output can be achieved by combining hundreds of such blue LDs. In 2020, NUBURU, an American company, showed 1500 Watts of blue laser output from a 100 μm core, NA=0.22 fiber for the first time. It is the highest level of output brightness of blue diode lasers so far in the world. Some achievements have also been made in China in recent years, and BWT Corporation has developed a blue laser with an output power of 500 W from a 400 μm core fiber with a 0.22 NA. However, the output brightness of laser seems to be insufficient for laser welding.

In this paper, we designed a high brightness blue LD module by using optical design software ZEMAX, where 48 blue LDs with 3.5 W output power were combined into a beam and efficiently coupled into a fiber with 105 μm core, 0.22 NA. Because of the large divergences, collimation was implemented before beam combination. The fast and slow axis collimating lenses with effective focal lengths of 1.65 mm and 16 mm are used. After that, the spot size of the fast and slow axis is 1.5 mm×4 mm, and the divergence half-angle is 0.043°×0.06°. Multiple such beams were spatially combined. To further improve the output power without deteriorating the beam quality, the polarization beam combining technology was used to double the output power. By theoretical analysis of fiber coupling conditions, four arrays constituted by combined beams, which are 6×3, 7×3, 8×3, and 9×3 arranged in fast and slow axis, are obtained. The output power and coupling efficiency of these four arrays are 108.97 W/94.18%, 126.83 W/93.93%, 144.7 W/93.78%, and 157.91 W/91%. The combination of 6×3 completely meets the fiber coupling conditions, and the focused light spot completely falls into the fiber core. But the latter three arrays cannot fully meet the fiber coupling conditions, and the focused light spot cannot entirely fall into the fiber core. If we regarded the coupling loss of 6×3 array as a reference, and the relative losses of the arrays of 7×3, 8×3 and 9×3 are 0.27%, 0.42%, and 3.38%, respectively. It can be seen that the 8×3 array is a better choice because the coupling loss only increases by 0.42%, but the output power increases by 32.7% compared with the 6×3 array. The output brightness is calculated to be 11 MW/(cm²·str). The total optical to optical conversion efficiency is 86.13%. As a result, the output power is further improved by slightly increasing the coupling loss, which provides a technical reference for making high brightness fiber-coupled LD modules in the future.