Phenomenological study of VCSEL wearout reliability

James K. Guenter; Bobby Hawkins; Robert A. Hawthorne

doi:10.1117/12.879744

7 February 2011 Phenomenological study of VCSEL wearout reliability

James K. Guenter, Bobby Hawkins, Robert A. Hawthorne

Proceedings Volume 7952, Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers XV; 795209 (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.879744
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2011, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

It has been traditional in discussions of VCSEL reliability to consider it as having a single major wearout component, with known temperature and current acceleration. Beyond this major component all other causes of failure are lumped into a small random failure component with an assumed-but not characterized-lower activation energy. Because reliability testing to assess the wearout acceleration requires very long test times to generate failures in the lowest-stress conditions, it is often assumed that the model that has been successful describing reliability in 850-nm data communications VCSELs can be extended to VCSELs of other wavelengths without significant modifications. This paper examines that assumption with regard to several VCSELs of different designs, and with emission wavelengths from below 800 nm to above 900 nm. A careful analysis reveals that even well-behaved wearout degradation might have several components whose relative contributions differ somewhat for different designs, with different resulting performance effects.

Citation Download Citation

James K. Guenter, Bobby Hawkins, and Robert A. Hawthorne "Phenomenological study of VCSEL wearout reliability", Proc. SPIE 7952, Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers XV, 795209 (7 February 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.879744

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