High-power red VCSEL arrays

High-power red laser sources are used in many applications such as cosmetics, cancer photodynamic therapy, and DNA sequencing in the medical field, laser-based RGB projection display, and bar-code scanning to name a few. Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) can be used as high-power laser sources, as efficient single devices can be configured into high-power two-dimensional arrays and scaled into modules of arrays. VCSELs emit in a circular, uniform beam which can greatly reduce the complexity and cost of optics. Other advantages include a narrow and stable emission spectrum, low speckle of the far-field emission, and good reliability. However, developing efficient red VCSEL sources presents some challenges because of the reduced quantum-well carrier confinement and the increased Aluminum content (to avoid absorption) which increases thermal impedance, and also decreases the DBR index contrast resulting in increased penetration length and cavity losses. We have recently developed VCSEL devices lasing in the visible 6xx nm wavelength band, and reaching 30% power conversion efficiency. We fabricated high-power 2D arrays by removing the GaAs substrate entirely and soldered the chips on high thermal conductivity submounts. Such arrays have demonstrated several Watts of output power at room temperature, in continuous-wave (CW) operation. Several tens of Watts are obtained in QCW operation. Results and challenges of these high-power visible VCSEL arrays will be discussed.