State-of-the-art aluminum-free 980-nm laser diodes

InGaAs/GaInAsP/GaInP ridge waveguide 980-nm laser diodes for pumping light into erbium doped fiber amplifiers are reviewed. These lasers have very good performance characteristics. They exhibit kink-free, single mode emission up to a power of 250 mW with a slope efficiency of 0.7 to 0.95 W/A, a thermally limited maximum power of 450-500 mW, and the threshold current density of about 150 A/cm/sup 2/. They are relatively stable against temperature variations. A 100 mW power from a fiber-pigtail module has been demonstrated. These lasers withstand severe thermal rollover tests without showing degradation effects. Preliminary lifetime tests indicate that their mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) may be very long, from several hundred thousand to one million hours, if not limited by sudden failure.