A high power laser system including: a plurality of emitters each including a large area waveguide and a plurality of quantum well regions optically coupled to the large area waveguide, wherein each of the quantum well regions exhibits a low modal overlap with the large area waveguide; a collimator optically coupled to the emitters; a diffraction grating optically coupled through the collimator to the emitters; and, an output coupler optically coupled through the diffraction grating to the emitters.