{"id":1374,"date":"2014-12-09T16:50:29","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T16:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prophotonix.com\/?p=1374"},"modified":"2025-07-28T15:47:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T14:47:18","slug":"driving-laser-diodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prophotonix.com\/driving-laser-diodes\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving Laser Diodes"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is a Laser diode?<\/h2>\n

A laser diode is a laser where the active medium is a semiconductor similar to that found in a light-emitting diode1<\/sup>. The most common type of laser diode is formed from a p-n junction and powered by injected electric current. A\u00a0laser diode<\/a>\u00a0is formed by doping a very thin layer on the surface of a crystal wafer. The crystal is doped to produce an n-type region and a p-type region, one above the other, resulting in a\u00a0p<\/em>–n<\/em>\u00a0junction, or diode.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Laser Diode Types<\/h2>\n

When selecting a driver circuit to operate and control the laser diode the configuration of the\u00a0laser diode<\/a> must be taken into account. In general, there are four types of laser diode configuration: p-type, n-type, m-type and z-type. Depending on the configuration of the laser diode chosen an optimized driver circuit is required. P-type laser diodes require a driver circuit with an output from a positive supply voltage while an n-type laser diodes require a driver circuit with an output from a negative supply voltage. Both have internal photodiodes which can be utilized to control variation in the output power. An M-type diode must have a separately generated reference to cater for its internal photodiode\u2019s feedback signal. Z-type laser diodes are diodes without internal photodiodes present.<\/p>\n

Driving Laser Diodes<\/h2>\n

By their nature, laser diodes<\/a>\u00a0are relatively inefficient. This inefficiency becomes more acute with higher-powered diodes so that thermal management of the diode and the diode package becomes critical for safe and reliable operation. The output power and wavelength varies with case temperature so the primary job to be done by the circuit is control of the output power. P, N and M \u2013type laser diodes all have internal back facet photodiodes which are part of the optical feedback path and are primarily used to control the output power. Z-type are run primarily using current feedback only. This is acceptable for low power laser diodes, however, for higher power diodes, other control techniques (temperature embedded microcontroller, etc.) are required to maintain safe and reliable operation.<\/p>\n

Outside of power management, certain applications require more complex driver design. For example, some specifications require tighter control on power variation than normal, some applications require the ability to strobe and some require the ability to vary the current so the output power can be modified.<\/p>\n

To see the full range of Laser Diodes available from ProPhotonix to suit your requirements, visit our Laser Diode Selector:
\nVisit Laser Diode Selector<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. https:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/~achaney\/tmve\/wiki100k\/docs\/Laser_diode.html<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What is a Laser diode? A laser diode is a laser where the active medium is a semiconductor similar to that found in a light-emitting diode1. The most common type of laser diode is formed from a p-n junction and powered by injected electric current. A\u00a0laser diode\u00a0is formed by doping a very thin layer on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","industry-uncategorized","product-category-laser-diodes"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDriving Laser Diodes: Laser diode types and considerations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This post looks at what laser diodes are, the types of laser diode and driving laser diodes, including the complexities of driving laser diodes.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prophotonix.com\/driving-laser-diodes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Driving Laser Diodes: Laser diode types and considerations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This post looks at what laser diodes are, the types of laser diode and driving laser diodes, including the complexities of driving laser diodes.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.prophotonix.com\/driving-laser-diodes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prophotonix\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-09T16:50:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-28T14:47:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.prophotonix.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Three_Laser_Diodes_850-crop.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"840\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"533\" \/>\n\t<meta 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