The Study Of High-power Semiconductor Laser Electrostatic Damage Mechanism

High-power semiconductor lasers(HPLD)has the advantages of high electro-optical conversion efficiency,small device size and good monochromaticity,so its application range is also expanding.In this case,people has higher requirement for the reliability of the semiconductor laser.But the current research focuses on the reliability of the HPLD in assembly stress,thermal resistance,the cavity surface catastrophic optical damage,etc.There are few studies on the impact of static electricity on HPLD reliability.And static electricity in the production life is very common and great impact on the HPLD.The main content of this paper is to study the electrostatic damage mechanism of HPLD devices.In order to judge whether the high power semiconductor laser is the failure of electrostatic damage,the research on the electrostatic damage mechanism of the high power semiconductor laser is carried out.By measuring and characterizing the phenomenon of electrostatic damage of high power semiconductor lasers,it provides effective criterion for judging its failure.The experiment is divided into three parts: ESD of the uncoated device,ESD of the coated device,and device simulation.1.The uncoated device and the coated deviceFirstly,GaAs-based high power laser diodes were applied bias of-400,-600,-800,-1200 and+5000V electrostatic discharge(ESD).The electrical and optical parameters of HPLD were characterized before and after electrostatic discharge stressing.Secondly,the damage of the device was observed using a microscope.After reverse ESD,the I-V curve of the semiconductor laser had an obvious soft breakdown phenomenon and the optical output power was decreased obviously.The reverse leakage current of-1200 V ESD device is 5883854.92 times not ESD device when it was working in 4V.After forward ESD,the device has no obvious soft breakdown phenomenon,and the power drop is very small.After the reverse ESD,ridge edge shape of the device which was etched gold electrode had obvious phenomenon of meltdown.Forward ESD devices do not have this phenomenon..For the cavity coating device,there were only reverse ESD experiments.The experimental voltage was-500 V and-1000 V,respectively.After the ESD,it is found that the device I-V characteristics had a significantly increase on leakage.The ridge type edge position of cavity surface has obvious melting point.2.The simulation of deviceUsing crosslight software built a typical wide contact surface large cavity side emitting high-power semiconductor laser diodes,and an electrical simulation.Simulation results show that the position on the edge of the ridge shape of poor electric field intensity is great,which is easy to cause the device breakdown.In summary,electrical characteristics and damage characterization of the device under forward electrostatic strike and reverse electrostatic strike are found,and the photoelectric characteristics of the device have no obvious change under forward electrostatic strike.But the reverse electrostatic strike made an obvious soft breakdown on the I-V curve.And the surface of the device had a phenomenon of meltdown.It is an effective criterion which is proposed to determine the electrostatic damage.And the electrostatic damage occurs firstly in the active zone corresponding to the edge of the ridge table,where there is a strong electric field easily lead to damage to the device breakdown.