We describe the use of flared waveguide diode lasers for obtaining increased output power under mode‐locked operation. The flared waveguide expands the optical mode from a narrow region which gives a single lateral optical mode, to a wider multimode region for higher pulse saturation energy. Flared gain and flared absorber section geometry devices are compared to devices with conventional uniform waveguides. Using flared gain section devices, improvements in both pulse energy (6.8 pJ) and pulsewidth (3.3 ps) were measured compared to uniform waveguide devices. Peak powers of over 2 W are obtained, which, to our knowledge, is the highest peak power obtained directly from mode‐locked single stripe diode lasers. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.