Long wavelength surface-emitting distributed feedback (SE-DFB) laser for range finding applications

We report on our progress to obtaining a 1540 nm SE-DFB laser with curved, second order grating capable of producing extremely high peak power for eye-safe range finding applications. Higher peak power can be extracted from SE-DFB lasers since the emission area is three orders of magnitude larger than for edge emitters. Ten-times narrower spectral width and four-times lower thermal shift of emission wavelength allows for the use of narrower filters on the range finder detector, providing a higher signal-to-noise ratio. Furthermore, a curved second-order diffraction grating in our SE-DFB laser allows for a higher brightness source, which makes transmitter optics geometry more compact and simpler.