Abstract

1. Introduction Recent progress in data transmission system requires high output power single-transverse-mode laser diodes (LD) for Raman and erbium-doped fiber-amplifier pumping sources, and several approaches have shown the possibility to obtain high output powers.^1,2 For such that purpose, active multi-mode interferometer (MMI) LD’s³ are attractive because of the following merits; (1) high output power compared to regular single-stripe LD’s,⁴ (2) stable regular single-transverse-mode output,⁵ and (3) low electric power consumption capability compared to regular single-stripe LD’s, with relatively simple structures. Especially electric power consumption is critical issue for pumping sources as an optical amplifier is one of the main power-consuming devices in the system. In this paper, we demonstrate significant reduction of 40% (@0.4 W output) in electric power consumption, and also significant output power increase of 70%, which results in 0.7 W output power at 1.45 µm, compared to regular single lobe LD’s by exploiting active MMI-LD’s concept.

© 2002 Optical Society of America