Device characteristics and degradation of ZnMgSSe-based semiconductor lasers

Abstract

Static characteristics such as the threshold current density and optical output of the II‐VI family laser diodes, promising as a light source for high‐density optical disk systems, have reached levels comparable to those of the III‐V family laser diodes. Improvement of device lifetime is the important subject for practical devices. By means of an analysis of degradation and optimization of the growth method, the rapid degradation mode caused by stacking faults seen in the early devices can now be avoided. At present, due to the rather slow degradation mode related to point defects, the life is extended to 100‐h operation at room temperature. A defect model based on the recombination‐enhanced defect reaction is proposed. It is shown that the two degration modes presently observed can be described well by this model. Further, it is made clear that no catastrophic degradation mode occurs under high injection conditions of up to 1.3 kA/cm2 in the II‐VI devices and that there is no fatal instability inherent in the material in practice. © 1998 Scripta Technica, Electron Comm Jpn Pt 2, 81(6): 27–34, 1998