Influence of p-type doping on the degradation of ZnSe laser diodes

Abstract

Optical degradation using a micro-focused wavelength selectable laser was demonstrated on blue-green ZnSe-based diode lasers even in the absence of stacking faults. The degradation speed at a given optical power density is dependent on the structure doping and on the photon energy while undoped structures do not degrade. The threshold photon energy to induce degradation is dependent on the degree of compensation in the p-doped layers. The speed of the degradation process becomes independent of the degree of compensation if the photon energies are large enough for a photon to be absorbed from the shallow nitrogen acceptor to the conduction band.