Failure mode characterizations of semiconductor lasers

Catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) and catastrophic optical bulk damage (COBD) are the main factors that affect the reliability of semiconductor lasers. In this paper, we characterize the COMD and COBD failure modes by examining the voltage changes at the current point where failure occurs, as well as by using the electroluminescent technique. Our study reveals that the voltage has an increase at the failure current point for COMD samples, in which failure occurs due to the damage to the facet mirrors; for COBD samples, in which failure occurs inside the laser cavity, the voltage exhibits a decrease and the amount of voltage decrease is roughly proportional to the size of the damaged area.