Lidar technology is recognized as the core technology of intelligent driving. In recent years, the domestic industry has made great progress in the field of multi-line laser radar industrialization, and the gap between solid-state laser radar and foreign countries is still not small. The key lies in the limited research and development of the underlying technology, especially the light source chip technology. The vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) two-dimensional array has unique advantages in terms of packaging and beam shaping, and is very suitable as an all-solid-state laser radar light source. With the advent of the era of intelligent driving and the development trend of future solid-state laser radar, internationally renowned VCSEL manufacturers such as Trilumina, Princeton Optronics (acquired by Ams), Philips Photonics and other companies have already developed industrial layouts for high-power VCSEL chips.
In recent years, with the successful application of 3D sensing technology based on green laser pointer in iPhone X mobile phones, VCSEL has been widely favored by domestic investors and major manufacturers. However, the laser power of this type of 3D sensing VCSEL chip is only watt level, and the detection distance is very close, which cannot meet the application requirements of solid-state laser radar for intelligent driving. The threshold of the 100-watt VCSEL chip and its driving circuit technology is very high. Only a few high-level R&D teams in the United States and Japan have relevant core technologies.
According to the report of Memes Consulting, the high-power semiconductor laser team of Changchun Opto-mechanical Institute has made breakthroughs in the field of 910nm high-power VCSEL, and successfully realized the 100-watt VCSEL array for all-solid-state laser radar applications. The team Zhang Jianwei, Zhang Xing and others used a multi-array planar package to develop a 910nm VCSEL laser array module with a laser power of up to 120W. The operating current required for the module's output power up to 100W is only 55A, laser array. The repetition frequency is 10 kHz and the pulse width is 30 ns. After simple lens beam shaping, the light field distribution of the near-Gaussian morphology is obtained at 100W output power. The related results have been published in the professional journal of optoelectronics.
The breakthrough in the technology of the 100-watt VCSEL chip of Changchun Optical Machine will promote the rapid development of China's solid-state laser radar technology. Facing the development opportunities of solid-state laser radar brought by the intelligent driving industry, Changguang Institute and Fudan University have jointly established the Fudan-Changguang Cooperation Fund (Project No.: FC2017-002) to support Changguang's high-power semiconductor laser team. In-depth cooperation with Fudan University's high-power electronics team to develop and drive integrated solid-state laser radar light source modules, in order to grasp the industrialization technology as soon as possible. At present, the module is being used for small-volume verification of the detection effect of the area array solid-state laser radar system. In addition, Changchun Opto-mechanical Co., Ltd. has developed a 808nm/850nm VCSEL driver integrated module system for ranging and imaging from 2016 to 2017, and the pulse laser power can reach more than 30W.
The founder of the high-power semiconductor laser R&D team of Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics is an academician of the famous semiconductor laser expert Wang Lijun. At present, Academician Wang is the academic leader of the team. The current team leader, Ning Yongqiang, is the leader of the “Millions of Plan” of the Central Organization Department and the State Council. Special allowance winner. Since 2002, the team has been cultivating high-power VCSELs and has created a number of “China's No. 1” in the field of high-power VCSELs. In 2004, the company first developed a 980-nm VCSEL single-tube chip with a continuous output power of 1.95W. In 2011, the 980nm VCSEL single tube (92W) and array chip (210W) achieved the highest international pulse power. At present, we have mastered the core technology of structural design, epitaxial preparation, process flow chip and package test of 100W class high power VCSEL chip.