Modeling High-Power Lasers

High-power semiconductor lasers are essential for applications spanning medical systems, industrial manufacturing, and as pump sources for solid-state and fiber lasers. As output power increases, however, device performance becomes limited by critical failure mechanisms such as facet damage, filamentation, and spatial hole burning, all of which can reduce reliability, beam quality, and achievable power. To address these challenges, designers have developed a range of mitigation strategies, including tapered facets, external cavities, gain-guided structures, and beam spoilers.

This application note demonstrates how self-consistent optical and electrical simulation enables engineers to accurately predict and analyze these high-power effects before fabrication. By combining 3D Beam Propagation Method (BPM) optical modeling with 2D drift-diffusion simulation through the Tapered-Laser-Utility workflow, the approach reproduces key high-power behaviors, including filamentation and spatial hole burning, while providing detailed insight into the interaction between optical fields and carrier transport.

The study also evaluates the effectiveness of beam spoilers — ow-k implanted regions positioned adjacent to the laser's straight section. Simulation results show that these structures significantly improve beam quality by suppressing detrimental optical effects while having negligible impact on the laser's light-current (L-I) characteristics. This makes beam spoilers an attractive first-line design strategy for enhancing high-power laser performance without compromising efficiency.

By leveraging multiphysics simulation early in the design process, engineers can compare design alternatives, reduce costly prototyping iterations, and accelerate the development of more robust, higher-performance semiconductor laser devices.