Enhanced degradation rates in temperature-sensitive Ga1-xAlxAs lasers

It is found that lasers with good temperature stability of threshold exhibit rates of increase of threshold with operating time which follow a log-normal distribution characterized by values of mean and standard deviation of 3.0 and 2.5 percent/kh, respectively, but lasers with poor temperature stability degrade too rapidly to fit this distribution. Possible reasons for this behavior are discussed.