Improvement in electrostatic-discharge tolerance of 1.3µm AlGaInAs/InP buried heterostructure laser diodes

This is the first report on electrostatic discharge (ESD)-induced degradation of AlGaInAs/InP buried heterostructure laser diodes. We found that the dominant degradation mechanism was melting of the active layer due to light absorption. We successfully improved ESD tolerance by facet passivation. The cumulative degradation ratio at 1.0 kV ESD tests was decreased from 40 to 0%.