Reliability and degradation of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Abstract

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (or VCSELs) are one of the largest-selling types of semiconductor lasers made today and are widely used in fiber-optic data communications equipment and a large fraction of optical mice made today. The lasers have been shipped with a field failure rate of <10 ppm/year over the past decade, thanks to extensive precautions that have been taken to qualify the designs and to screen out weak devices and weak batches. In this chapter, we will go over in detail what precautions are taken to assure high reliability for the most demanding applications, all the way fromthe design process to high-volume shipment. Then we discuss common failure mechanisms seen in VCSELs and how failure analysis is performed to determine the cause of failure and prevent future recurrences.