A Novel Method to Estimate Current Leakage of Laser Diodes

The low frequency noise (LFN) properties are investigated on the high power 808 nm InGaAsP/GaAs quantum well (QW) laser diodes under low bias current (10
^-6
~10
^-3
A) in order to estimate the current leakage of semiconductor lasers. For the first time, we investigate the LFN peak under very low bias current. After a short time electrical aging (50 or 150 hours), the right-shifted position of the LFN peak and annealing effect are observed. An equivalent circuit model considering of parallel shunt path is employed to interpret these experimental results. It is concluded that LFN peak under low injected current is sensitive to the mechanisms of microscopic current leakage, and can be used as an indicator of reliability of laser diodes.