Multi-stripe laser diodes are important for a wide range of applications including pump sources for high power fiber amplifiers and industrial applications. It is now believed that multimode single stripe laser diodes with high reliability have been designed and fabricated by several manufacturers. We have data which show FIT (failure in 109 hours) rates of ~ 12 FIT for 100 μm wide multimode emitters at power levels 2.5 W for a 15 year operation at 20 C. We have developed a method for calculating the survival probability of such multimode lasers when they are assembled in the form of a multi-stripe array. For a demanding application, a multi-stripe array can be considered a failure if one emitter in the array fails whereas for some other applications higher number of emitter failures is acceptable. The survival probability of the entire ensemble of lasers in the array as a function of number of stripes, number of failures, operating power level, and, near neighbor thermal interaction has been studied.

Date Published: 7 January 2009
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7132, Laser-Induced Damage in Optical Materials: 2008, 713217 (7 January 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.804483

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7132:
Laser-Induced Damage in Optical Materials: 2008
Gregory J. Exarhos; Detlev Ristau; M. J. Soileau; Christopher J. Stolz, Editor(s)