Leaky-guided channeled substrate planar (LCSP) laser with reduced substrate radiation and heating

A semiconductor laser design, the leaky-guided channeled substrate planar (LCSP) structure, is presented. The structure with a buffer layer in the region outside the channel provides a built-in negative effective index step. The transverse mode is well damped in the buffer layer, and the substrate radiation in the region outside the channel is virtually eliminated. As a result, the significant heating and facet degradation in the region outside the channel that is related to the substrate radiation in conventional CSP lasers is minimized. The calculated local temperature rise in the region outside the channel of the CSP laser is about 45°C for an output power level of 100 mW and is in reasonably good agreement with previously experimental results. Analysis using the complex domain effective index method shows that the LCSP structure provides better lateral mode discrimination than either gain-guided or positive index step structures. The LCSP structure with reduced heating and strong lateral coupling effect may be useful for high-power linear array lasers