U. Menzel et al., FACET HEATING AND AXIAL TEMPERATURE PROFILES IN HIGH-POWER GAALAS GAAS LASER-DIODES/, Microelectronics and reliability, 38(5), 1998, pp. 821-825
Degradation of the facets represents a major reason reducing the perfo
rmance and the lifetime of high-power laser diodes. Nonradiative surfa
ce recombination of electrons and holes results in a strong heating of
the facet region and subsequent defect accumulation. We theoretically
investigated facet heating of an asymmetrically coated 20-stripe GaAs
/GaAlAs laser diode array by a self-consistent calculation of the axia
l profiles of temperature, carrier density, and optical intensity. To
validate the model, we measured the facet temperature as a function of
injection current using micro-Raman spectroscopy. Our results point t
o the possibility of catastrophical optical damage at the reflection-c
oated facet arising from the asymmetric thermal load of the facets. (C
) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.