A study on the reliability of indium solder die bonding of high power semiconductor lasers

High power semiconductor lasers have found increased applications. Indium solder is one of the most widely used solders in high power laser die bonding. Indium solder has some advantages in laser die bonding. It also has some concerns, however, especially in terms of reliability. In this paper, the reliability of indium solder die bonding of high power broad area semiconductor lasers was studied. It was found that indium solder bonded lasers have much shorter lifetime than AuSn solder bonded devices. Catastrophic degradation was observed in indium solder bonded lasers. Nondestructive optical and acoustic microscopy was conducted during the lifetime testing to monitor the failure process and destructive failure analysis was performed after the lasers failed. It was found that the sudden failure was caused by electromigration of indium solder at the high testing current of up to 7 A. It was shown that voids were created and gradually enlarged by indium solder electromigration, which caused local heating near the facets of the laser. The local heating induced catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) of the lasers. It was discussed that current crowding, localized high temperature, and large temperature gradient contributed to the fast indium solder electromigration. It was observed that some bright pattern structures appeared on the front facet of the indium solder bonded lasers after the devices failed and the bright patterns grew and spread upon further testing. Failure analysis showed that the bright pattern structure apparent on the front facet was due to crystallization of the TiO_x material of the front facet coating as a result of overheating during lifetime testing. It was concluded that indium solder is not suitable for high power laser applications due to electromigration at high current densities and high temperatures.