Semiconductor Laser Engineering, Reliability and Diagnostics: A Practical Approach to High Power and Single Mode Devices (Hardcover)

This reference book provides a fully integrated novel approach to the development of high-power, single-transverse mode, edge-emitting diode lasers by addressing the complementary topics of device engineering, reliability engineering and device diagnostics in the same book, and thus closes the gap in the current book literature.

Diode laser fundamentals are discussed, followed by an elaborate discussion of problem-oriented design guidelines and techniques, and by a systematic treatment of the origins of laser degradation and a thorough exploration of the engineering means to enhance the optical strength of the laser. Stability criteria of critical laser characteristics and key laser robustness factors are discussed along with clear design considerations in the context of reliability engineering approaches and models, and typical programs for reliability tests and laser product qualifications. Novel, advanced diagnostic methods are reviewed to discuss, for the first time in detail in book literature, performance- and reliability-impacting factors such as temperature, stress and material instabilities.

Further key features include:

• practical design guidelines that consider also reliability related effects, key laser robustness factors, basic laser fabrication and packaging issues;
• detailed discussion of diagnostic investigations of diode lasers, the fundamentals of the applied approaches and techniques, many of them pioneered by the author to be fit-for-purpose and novel in the application;
• systematic insight into laser degradation modes such as catastrophic optical damage, and a wide range of technologies to increase the optical strength of diode lasers;
• coverage of basic concepts and techniques of laser reliability engineering with details on a standard commercial high power laser reliability test program.

Semiconductor Laser Engineering, Reliability and Diagnostics reflects the extensive expertise of the author in the diode laser field both as a top scientific researcher as well as a key developer of high-power highly reliable devices. With invaluable practical advice, this new reference book is suited to practising researchers in diode laser technologies, and to postgraduate engineering students. 

 

Dr. Peter W. Epperlein is Technology Consultant with his own semiconductor technology consulting business Pwe-PhotonicsElectronics-IssueResolution in the UK. He looks back at a thirty years career in cutting edge photonics and electronics industries with focus on emerging technologies, both in global and start-up companies, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, Philips/NXP, Essient Photonics and IBM/JDSU Laser Enterprise. He holds Pre-Dipl. (B.Sc.), Dipl. Phys. (M.Sc.) and Dr. rer. nat. (Ph.D.) degrees in physics, magna cum laude, from the University of Stuttgart, Germany.

Dr. Epperlein is an internationally recognized expert in compound semiconductor and diode laser technologies. He has accomplished R&D in many device areas such as semiconductor lasers, LEDs, optical modulators, quantum well devices, resonant tunneling devices, FETs, and superconducting tunnel junctions and integrated circuits. His pioneering work on sophisticated diagnostic research has led to many world’s first reports and has been adopted by other researchers in academia and industry. He authored more than seventy peer-reviewed journal papers, published more than ten invention disclosures in the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, has served as reviewer of numerous proposals for publication in technical journals, and has won five IBM Research Division Awards. His key achievements include the design and fabrication of high-power, highly reliable, single mode diode lasers.
 

Book Reviews

“Semiconductor Laser Engineering, Reliability and Diagnostics: A Practical Approach to High Power and Single Mode Devices”. By Peter W. Epperlein

Prof. em. Dr. Heinz Jäckel, High Speed Electronics and Photonics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich, Switzerland

The book “Semiconductor Laser Engineering, Reliability and Diagnostics” by Dr. P.W. Epperlein is a landmark in the recent literature on semiconductor lasers because it fills a longstanding gap between many excellent books on laser theory and the complex and challenging endeavor to fabricate these devices reproducibly and reliably in an industrial, real world environment.

Having worked myself in the early research and development of high power semiconductor lasers, I appreciate the competent, complete and skillful presentation of these three highly interrelated topics, where small effects have dramatic consequences on the success of a final product, on the ultimate performance and on the stringent reliability requirements, which are the name of the game.

As the title suggests the author addresses three tightly interwoven and critical topics of state-of-the-art power laser research. The three parts are: device and mode stability engineering (chapter 1, 2), reliability mechanisms and reliability assessment strategies (chapter 3, 4, 5, 6) and finally material and device diagnostics (chapter 7, 8, 9) all treated with a strong focus on the implementation. This emphasis on the complex practical aspects for a large-scale power laser fabrication is a true highlight of the book.

The subtle interplay between laser design, reliability strategies, advanced failure analysis and characterization techniques are elaborated in a very rigorous and scientific way using a very clear and easy to read representation of the complex interrelation of the three major topics. I will abstain from trying to provide a complete account of all the topics but mainly concentrate on the numerous highlights.

The first part 1 “Laser Engineering” is divided in two chapters on basic electronic-optical, structural, material and resonator laser engineering on the one side, and on single mode control and stability at very high, still reliable power-levels with the trade-off between mirror damage, single mode stability on the other side. To round up the picture less well-known concepts and the state-of-the-art of large-area lasers, which can be forced into single-mode operation, are reviewed carefully. The subtle and complex interplay, which is challenging to optimize for a design for reliability and low stress as a major boundary condition is crucial for the design. The section gives a rather complete and well-referenced account of all relevant aspects, relations and trade-offs for understanding the rest of the book.

The completeness of the presentation on power laser diode design based on basic physical and plausible arguments is mainly based on analytic mathematical relations as well as experiments providing a new and well-balanced addition for the power diode laser literature in particular. Modern 2D self-consistent electro-optical laser modeling including carrier hole burning and thermal effects – this is important because the weak optical guiding and gain-discrimination depend critically on rather small quantities and effects, which are difficult to optimize experimentally – is used in the book for simulation results, but is not treated separately.

The novel and really original, “gap-filling” bulk of the book is elaborated by the author in a very clear way in the following four chapters in the part 2 “Laser Reliability” on laser degradation physics and mirror design and passivation at high power, followed then by two very application oriented chapters on reliability design engineering and practical reliability strategies and implementation procedures. This original combination of integral design and reliability aspects – which are mostly neglected  in standard literature – is certainly a major plus of this book. I liked this second section as a whole, because it provides excellent insights in degradation physics on a high level and combines it in an interesting and skillful way with the less “glamorous” (unfortunately) but highly relevant reliability science and testing strategies, which is particularly important for devices operating at extreme optical stresses with challenging lifetime requirements in a real word environment.

Finally, the last part 3 “Laser Diagnostics” comprising three chapters, is devoted mainly to advanced experimental diagnostics techniques for material integrity, mechanical stress, deep level defects, various dynamic laser degradation effects, surface- and interface quality, and most importantly heating and disordering of mirrors and mirror coatings. The topics of characterization techniques comprising micro-Raman- and micro-thermoreflectance-probing, 2K photoluminescence spectroscopy, micro-electroluminescence and photoluminescence scanning, and deep-level-transient spectroscopy have been pioneered by the author for the specific applications over many years guaranteeing many competent and well represented insights. These techniques are brilliantly discussed and the information distributed in many articles by the author has been successfully unified in a book form.

In my personal judgment and liking, I consider the parts 2 and 3 on reliability and diagnostics as the most valuable and true novel contribution of the book, which in combination with the extremely well-covered laser design of part 1 clearly fill the gap in the current diode laser literature, which in this detail has certainly been neglected in the past.

In summary, I can highly recommend this excellent, well-organized and clearly written book to readers who are already familiar with basic diode laser theory and who are active in the academic and industrial fabrication and characterization of semiconductor lasers. Due to its completeness, it also serves as an excellent reference of the current state-of-the-art in reliability engineering and devi...