STOCKHOLM -- Comlase has introduced a novel passivation and facet coating reactor that utilizes the company’s proprietary Native Nitride Ion Beam Epitaxy (N2IBE) process to increase damage threshold, improve output power and extend lifetime of edge emitting semiconductor lasers. The N2IBE process utilizes nitrogen bombardment to eliminate surface oxides and impurities and nitridize any reactive chemical bonds within the device material, thus preventing oxidation during facet coating and subsequent operation. The result is a substantial increase in catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) threshold and laser reliability. The N2IBE process is useful for a wide range of III-V semiconductor materials, including AlGaAs, GaAs, GaN, InGaN, InP, AlInGaAs, InGaP, InGaAsP, operating anywhere over the 400 nm to 1700 nm wavelength range.

The reactor itself consists of a load locked, stainless steel, ultra-high vacuum (10-9 Torr) chamber containing an ion gun for facet milling and passivation, and two electron-beam guns and effusion cells for producing antireflection (e.g. alumina) and high reflection (e.g. alumina/silicon) coatings. This construction allows all operations to be completed within a single run, and eliminates the need to break vacuum at any time during the process. The system is nominally configured to work with 10 mm wide semiconductor laser bars, which have been cleaved in air, rather than under vacuum conditions. Batch sizes of 200 bars, together with short cycle time, make the system very compatible with high volume production environments. Comlase also develops customer specific passivation processes and performs passivation of customer-supplied devices as a service.

Comlase AB