Electrostatic discharge failure characteristics of oxide vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

Oxide Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) are widely used in data communication. However, VCSELs are sensitive to ElectroStatic Discharge (ESD), which is one of the main reasons for theirfailure. It is difficult to identify the root cause of this problem. Therefore, 3 different ESD models includingHuman Body Model (HBM), Machine Model (MM) and Charge Device Model (CDM) and Electrical Over-Stress (EOS) shocks were applied to carry out the failure analysis of oxide VCSELs. Among them, voltageshocks of different polarities were used for HBM while reverse I-V, forward L-I-V scan, emission micro-scopy (EMMI) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) were used for characterization. The resultsshow that different ESD models show significantly different damage voltage thresholds, and the oxide VC-SEL is susceptible to damage in the HBM and MM models but insensitive in the CDM model. Defect charac-teristics associated with ESD failure were found including increased reverse leakage, degradation of opticaloutput power, and bright spots in the EMMI. TEM was the most direct and effective method where differentESD events showed different defect sizes and locations. These research results are of great significance toconfirm whether the failure mode is caused by ESD and to judge the specific ESD models in detail.