A study of optical noise measurement as a reliability estimation for laser diodes

An experimental study of noise in mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers of different designs

“…Whereas several studies reported a strong correlation between optical noise (either frequency or intensity noise) and terminal voltage noise [32][33][34][35][36] as we observed here for mid-infrared QCLs, some others, on the contrary, assessed the absence of any cor-relation between these two quantities [37]. The origin of 1/f noise in near-infrared semiconductor light sources has also been largely discussed in various devices including laser diodes at 0.8 [37], 1.3 [38] and 1.55 μm [32,35], but also in superluminescent diodes [39].…”

“…Based on this observation, low-frequency 1/f noise has been proposed as a sensitive measure of the quality and reliability of near-infrared laser diodes [32,36], by indicating the presence of intrinsic defects or fabrication imperfections that can act as deep traps or recombination centers in the semiconductor structure. In the QCLs investigation reported here, we did not see any evidence of a direct relation between noise and laser reliability.…”

<title>Noise measurement used for reliability screening of optoelectronic coupled devices (OCDs)</title>

“…However, the results have demonstrated that the failure rate for devices which initially exhibit high noise is about 10 times higher than the failure rate for devices which initially exhibit low noise. (3) We select the ratio of V(1O Hz) to V(1 Hz) instead of g-r noise component of noise spectrum, because this reliability screening indicator is more simple and convenient than the calculation of g-r noise component during the practical application for screening of a large number of devices.…”

“…The voltage noise spectrum of RTS fluctuation is mainly due to number fluctuations of carriers. The current noise spectral density of burst noise has the shape of Lorentzian, '3 Sj(f) = (3) where Ab 5 a constant depending on the nature of the defects and Tb is defined as 1/Yb=1/T1+l/T2. According to the random switch mode ,14 during the time interval dt, an open switch has the probability dt/r of closing, and a closed switch a probability dt/r2 of opening.…”

Correlation between the g-r noise in semiconductor lasers and device reliability

“…Recently, this method has been studied extensively [1][2][3][4]. The research results indicate the low-frequency noise has closely relation with quality and reliability of semiconductor lasers; moreover, the devices with higher noise level are usually unreliable.…”