Extremely high-brightness tapered photonic crystal diode laser with narrow-emitting aperture

High-brightness tapered photonic crystal diode lasers in the 980 nm range are investigated. The tapered lasers with a 20 μm wide light-emitting aperture achieved 2.55 W at 3.2 A. The beam quality factor M2 in the vertical and lateral directions are 1.16 and 1.48 at 2.5 A. Maximum brightness of 126.8 MW cm−2 sr at the second moment level is achieved. The devices also shows a narrow far-field of 17.1° × 6.5° in the vertical and lateral directions and a high efficiency of 53%. The proportion of the first-order mode in the lasing emission is also investigated based on the measured beam quality factor.