Improved brightness on broad-area single emitter (BASE) modules

In this communication we report on the approaches to increase the brightness of Bookham's latest generations of high power pump modules. Since the single-emitter laser diode is the essential building block in all module designs, the optimization of the device design towards higher wall-plug efficiency, higher brightness and better reliability is one focus of the ongoing development efforts at Bookham. By using an analytical simulation tool critical parameters for efficient emitter-fiber coupling as the beam divergence and coupling scheme could be identified.