The invention describes a high power laser diode with potential use in ophthalmology, surgery, printing, magneto-optical data storage. The solution proposes the use of a balance region (6) to attract the maximum of the optical field outside the active region (5). In this way, low confinement laser-diode structures are obtained with confinement factor less than 0.015 and thicknesses of the active region greater than 0.01 mu m, which allows the reliable and efficient operation of high power laser diodes, for high values of the injection current, in the fundamental transversal and lateral mode. To limit the two-photon absorption in the regions with low energy gap, others than the active region, the confinement factors for these regions are also low.