Stealth dicing strategy for fabricating the cleavage mirror facets of semiconductor laser

Abstract

We investigated the formation of cavity mirror facets of GaN-based laser diodes (LDs) using laser stealth dicing (SD) approach in skip-and-scribing mode and compared it with traditional diamond-tip edge-scribing method. As a result, high-quality LD cavity mirrors and non-degradative lasing properties were achieved with the SD scribe and cleavage method. The morphology measurement confirmed that the laser SD scribing effectively inhibited the formation of cavity mirror terrace-like structures, which usually appeared in traditional scribing methods, resulting in uniform and consistent cleavage bars. In a comparison experiment, A 1000-h burn-in test at 100 mA@40 °C was applied to TO56 packaged LDs to evaluate the effect of the new method on device performance. The results showed that the degradation rate of power in SD LDs is 7 % on average after aging. The average lifetime of SD LDs was 8083 h estimated by 1000-h of burn-in test, demonstrating the same stability and lifetime as the diamond-scribing LDs. The application of the novel laser SD scribe and cleavage solution in large-scale LD production was significant for improving yield and reducing cost.