WR3

14:15 – 14:30

RELIABILITY OF HIGH-POWER 1060-nm DBR LASERS

Hong Ky Nguyen, Sean Coleman, Nick J. Visovsky, Yabo Li, Kechang Song, Ronald W. Davis Jr., Martin H. Hu,
David A. Loeber and Chung-En Zah
Corning Incorporated
nguyenhk@corning.com

Abstract: We report highly reliable 1060-nm DBR lasers with a single-wavelength output power larger than 350
mW and a failure rate as low as 3.2 kFITs at a heat-sink temperature of 25oC and a gain current of 500 mA.

Summary
Extensive efforts have been made to develop high-power tunable single-wavelength 1060-nm semiconductor lasers
as a light source for green-light generation by frequency doubling using periodically-poled second-harmonic-
generation (SHG) devices [1-3]. High-power 1060-nm distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) lasers have been
successfully fabricated [4] and high-speed modulation of green light generated from a DBR laser/SHG module has
been demonstrated [5]. These DBR lasers provide single-wavelength emission at about 1060 nm with an optical
power larger than 350 mW. A reliable operation of the DBR lasers at this high-power level is very desirable. The
reliability of high-power 980-nm lasers is known to be excellent [6]. Good reliability has recently been reported for
1060-nm InGaAs strained-quantum-well Fabry-Perot lasers under 225-mW automatic power control at 50oC for
14000 hours [7]. However, the reliability of 1060-nm DBR lasers is more challenging due to high strain in the active
layer and additional fabrication processes required to form the DBR and phase sections. In this paper, we report
reliability data collected during a time period of longer than 5000 hours for more than 200 DBR laser chips. The
gain section of laser chips is under accelerated aging at various high-stress conditions. The extrapolated failure rate
of 3200 failures in time (FIT) at the gain current of 500 mA and ambient temperature of 25oC has been obtained,
indicating that our 1060-nm DBR lasers are highly reliable.

The 1060-nm DBR laser chip consists of three sections: a gain section, a phase section, and a DBR section. The
active gain section is subjected to the highest current stress during laser operation. The laser structure grown by low-
pressure organometallic vapor-phase epitaxy (LP-OMVPE) includes a graded-index-separate-confinement
heterostructure (GRINSCH) with a 2%-compressively-strained InGaAs quantum well sandwiched by AlGaAs
cladding layers. To eliminate the band-to-band absorption in the passive phase and DBR sections, the energy band
gap of the quantum well in these sections is widened as compared to that in the gain section by using an impurity-
free quantum-well intermixing technique [4]. An aluminum-free 2nd-order grating is formed in the upper cladding
layer of the DBR section by wet chemical etching with a resist mask patterned by holography. A raised-ridge
waveguide is used for lateral optical and electrical confinement. The laser is mounted on an AlN hybrid soldered
onto an Au-coated copper heat sink. The DBR laser aging is accelerated in commercial reliability-test systems with
gain current injection under automatic constant current control (ACC). A gain current value between 400-600 mA is
used, depending on the length of gain section. The heat-sink temperature is elevated to 65, 80, or 95oC. Fig. 1 shows
front facet power measured as a function of gain current on in-situ aging system for a typical 1060-nm DBR laser at
the heat-sink temperature of 25 and 80oC. The lasing threshold current is 35 mA at 25oC. It increases slightly to 52
mA at 80oC. The single-wavelength output power as high as 400 and 330 mW is obtained at a gain current of 600
mA and a heat-sink temperature of 25 and 80oC, respectively. Typical emission spectra measured at different gain
currents up to 650 mA and the hybrid temperature of 25°C are shown in Fig. 2. The side-mode suppression ratio is
larger than 45 dB over the whole current range.

450 120

400 100 o
25 C
Front facet power (mW)

350 80
60
Intensity (dB)

300
40
250 650 mA
20
200 550 mA
0
150 450 mA
-20
100 25oC 350 mA
-40
250 mA
50 80oC -60
150 mA
0 -80
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 1058 1058.5 1059 1059.5 1060 1060.5 1061
Gain current (mA) Wavelength (nm)

Fig.1 Front facet power as a function of gain current. Fig.2 Emission spectra at different gain currents.

0-7803-9556-5/06/$20.00 © 2006 IEEE 587

 TABLE I
500 RELIABILITY SUMMARY
8 DBR lasers
Temperature: 80o C
400 Total number of DBR lasers under test 205
Gain current: 600 mA
Present test duration (h) 5387-7820
Power (mW)

300 Total life-time “device -hour” number 741810

Accelerated aging temperature (oC) 65, 80, and 95
200 Accelerated aging gain current (mA) 400-600
Heat-sink temperature of nominal operation (oC) 25
100 Gain current of nominal operation per 2 mm length (mA) 500
Optical power at nominal operation (mW) 350
0
Extrapolated failure rate at normal operation (kFIT) 3.2
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
Time (h)

Fig.3 Front facet power as a function of time.

The front facet power is plotted as a function of aging time at the gain current of 600 mA and the heat-sink
temperature of 80oC for a cell of 8 DBR lasers in Fig. 3. No degradation in the output power and threshold current
has been observed after 5888 h under test. Table I summarizes the reliability test information of 1060-nm DBR
lasers tested for 5387-7820 h. These are the longest aging tests at the highest current and temperature stress ever
reported for high-power 1060-nm DBR lasers, to the best of our knowledge. More than 740000 life-time device-
hours have been collected for 205 DBR lasers. The primary failure mode is sudden failures, mainly dominated by
bulk dark-line defects. The presence of these defects has been confirmed by high-resolution electron microscopy
and electroluminescence analysis. We find that the random failure rate model used for 980-nm high-power lasers [6]
is also valid for our 1060-nm high-power DBR lasers. We obtain the extrapolated random failure rate of 3.2 kFITs
corresponding to 0.32%/1000 h for our DBR lasers at the nominal operating condition of 25°C heat-sink
temperature and 500 mA gain current per 2 mm gain section length. At this nominal operating condition, our DBR
lasers provide a single-wavelength optical output power above 350 mW.

In summary, we have demonstrated highly reliable 1060-nm DBR lasers with an extrapolated failure rate as low
as 3.2 kFITs at a heat-sink temperature of 25oC and a gain current of 500 mA corresponding to a single-wavelength
output power larger than 350 mW. The reliability data of the high-power 1060-nm DBR lasers under longest aging
tests at the highest level of current and temperature stress have been obtained for the first time, to the best of our
knowledge. The random failure rate model used for 980-nm high-power lasers was found to be valid for our 1060-
nm high-power DBR lasers.

References
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