Volume 15 Issue 2
Mar.  2022
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ZHANG Yu-qi, ZUO Zhi-yuan, KAN Qiang, ZHAO Jia. Common failure modes and mechanisms in oxide vertical cavity surface emitting lasers[J]. Chinese Optics, 2022, 15(2): 187-209. doi: 10.37188/CO.EN.2021-0012
Citation: ZHANG Yu-qi, ZUO Zhi-yuan, KAN Qiang, ZHAO Jia. Common failure modes and mechanisms in oxide vertical cavity surface emitting lasers[J]. Chinese Optics, 2022, 15(2): 187-209. doi: 10.37188/CO.EN.2021-0012

Common failure modes and mechanisms in oxide vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

doi: 10.37188/CO.EN.2021-0012
Funds:  Supported by the Nano Special Project of National Key Research and Development Program(No. 2018YFA0209001); National Key Research and Development Project(No. 2018YFA0209002, No. 2018YFB2200700)
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  • Author Bio:

    ZHANG Yu-qi (1991—), male, was born in Liaoyang, Liaoning province. He received his Master degree from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2015. Currently, he is a Ph.D student in Key Laboratory of Laser&Infrared System on Shandong University and a senior engineer in Xiamen San’An Integrated Circuit Co., LTD. His research interests are on reliability and failure analysis of semiconductor lasers. E-mail: zyxzyq@163.com

    ZUO Zhi-yuan (1984—), male, was born in Dezhou, Shandong province. He received his Ph.D degree from Shandong University in 2012. Currently, he is an associate professor in Key Laboratory of Laser & Infrared System on Shandong University. His research interests are the design and fabrication of heterogeneous integrated optoelectronic devices. E-mail: zuozhiyuan@sdu.edu.cn

    KAN Qiang (1977—), male, Researcher, Doctoral supervisor. He received his Ph.D degree from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2005. His research interests are on photonic crystal microcavity laser and photonic crystal vertical cavity surface emitting laser. E-mail: kanqiang@semi.ac.cn

    ZHAO Jia (1984—), male, was born in Jinan, Shandong province. He received his Ph.D degree from Shandong University in 2011. Currently, he is a professor in School of Information Science and Engineering on Shandong University. His research interests are on optoelectronic devices and system design, computational electromagnetics, etc. E-mail: zhaojia@sdu.edu.cn

  • Corresponding author: zhaojia@sdu.edu.cn
  • Received Date: 22 Nov 2021
  • Rev Recd Date: 10 Dec 2021
  • Accepted Date: 24 Dec 2021
  • Available Online: 24 Dec 2021
  • Publish Date: 21 Mar 2022
  • Oxide Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers(VCSELs) are widely used in high-speed optical communications. The reliability of VCSELs is a very important index that requires a high lifetime and low failure rate in the application process. Understanding the root causes and mechanisms of VCSEL failure is necessary and helpful to improve device reliability. In this paper, we summarize and analyze the most common failure modes, causes and mechanisms observed in oxide VCSELs from the perspective of design, manufacturing and application, then apply some appropriate measures and suggestions to prevent or improve them. Moreover, the three dominating factors leading to the failure of VCSELs including oxide layer stress, Electronic Static Discharge (ESD) and humidity corrosion are introduced in more detail. At last, we simply introduce the VCSEL failure cases encountered in the actual accelerated aging verification process. This article can be used as a good VCSEL failure analysis library for chip development and production researchers.

     

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