Reliability of High Power QCW-AlGaAs/GaAs 808nm cm-Bars

The reliability, long-term performance and lifetime of high power diode lasers are important issues for pumping of solid state and fiber laser systems. In order to obtain the lifetime data of high power QCW 808 nm cm-bars, we have set up a computer controlled diode array reliability experiment which can automated monitor the laser arrays 24 hours a day. Using this setup 10 high power QCW cm-bars currently being tested was operated for more than 5.4 billion shots at 25degC with a pulse width of 200 mus and a duty factor of 2%, and one cm-bars suffered sudden failure at 3.24 times 10⁷ shots, one cm-bars had reached the failure criterion at 1.98 billion shots. The failure analysis of these two failed device were reported on this paper.