A NEW STRUCTURE FOR HIGH-POWER TW-SLA

We propose a novel structure, comprised of an exponentially tapered active layer, for traveling wave semiconductor laser amplifiers (TW-SLA) to improve the saturation output power and the quantum efficiency. Both the spatial distributions of the carrier density and the optical field were taken into account in our analysis. We point out that an optimum taper geometry exists to maximize the efficiency, and show that this structure provides, compared to a conventional one, a simultaneous improvement in the saturation output power (7 dB) and in the quantum efficiency (1.5 times).