Narrow Asymmetric Waveguide Design for High-Power Semiconductor Lasers

High-power semiconductor lasers are widely used for pumping erbium-doped and Raman amplifiers as well as for a number of non-communications applications. The record performance so far has been achieved using broadened symmetric waveguide design, which however may have significant limitations at very high current densities. We assess these limitations and discuss the advantages of our recently proposed narrow asymmetric waveguide design over the broadened symmetric one in terms of internal and output efficiency, far field, and heating properties. An analytical theory is outlined and verified by numerical simulations