High pulse power wavelength stabilized 905 nm laser bars for automotive LiDAR

Abstract

Key components of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) systems, e.g., for autonomous driving and robotics are diode lasers capable of generating nanoseconds-long optical pulses with peak powers of 100 W and more. We present here an internally wavelength stabilized distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) broad area (BA) laser bar with 48 emitters electrically driven by a new in-house developed high-speed driver based on GaN transistors providing electrical pulses with peak currents of up to 1000 A and a repetition frequency of10 kHz. The generated 4 ns to 10 ns long optical pulses are nearly rectangular shaped and reach a pulse peak power in excess of600 Watts at 25o C. The optical spectrum of a single emitter with a center wavelength of about 900 nm has a width of 0.6 nm with a side mode suppression ratio \gt 30dB.