ELECTRONICS CIRCUITS AND

DEVICES
ECE201
INTRODUCTION TO LASER DIODE

DATE OF ALLOTEMENT:
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 10/5/2010

SUBMITTED TO:
SUBMITTEDBY:

MR. Preetanjan sir Sahil

sharma

Department Of Electronic
ROLLNO:Rm6901a09

S
ECTION:M6901

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CONTENTS
1) Introduction to the laser
…………………… 4
2) What a diode stands for..??
……………………5
3) What is a Laser Diode..??
……………………6
4) How Laser Diode works effect..??
………………….. 7
5) Light production by laser light
………………….8
6) Theory of operation
………………… 10
7) Types of Laser Diode
………………..11
7.1) Double hetrostruture laser
…………………11
7.2) Quantum well Laser
…………………12
7.3) Quantum cascade laser
………………….13
7.4) Seprate confinement hetrostructure Laser
…………………13

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 7.5) Distributed stretched Laser
………………….14
8.) Failure of Laser Diode
..…………….15
9.) Application of laser Diode
………………..16
10.) References
………………17

INTRODUCTION TO LASER
An acronym for LASER

L =light

A=amplification by the

S=stimulated

E=emission of

R=radiation
v Fig.1 view
of laser diode

A coherent, monochromatic light source having the common

characteristics of an active material to convert energy into laser
light, a pumping source to provide energy or power, optics to
direct the beam repeatedly through the active material so that
it becomes amplified, and the optics to direct the beam into a
narrow cone of light

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A laser diode is a laser where the active medium is a
semiconductor similar to that found in a light-emitting diode.
The most common and practical type of laser diode is formed
from a p-n junction and powered by injected electric current.
These devices are sometimes referred to as injection laser
diodes to distinguish them from (optically) pumped laser
diodes, which are more easily manufactured in the laboratory.

This is a visible light micrograph of a laser diode taken from a

CD-ROM drive. Visible are the P and N layers distinguished by
different colours. Also visible are scattered glass fragments
from a broken collimating lens.

What a diode stands for…??

"A diode is a specialized
electronic component
with two electrodes called
the anode and the
cathode. Most diodes are
made with semiconductor
materials such as silicon,
germanium, or selenium.
Some diodes are
comprised of metal
electrodes in a chamber
evacuated or filled with a
pure elemental gas at low
pressure. Diodes can be
used as rectifiers, signal
limiters, voltage
regulators, switches,

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signal modulators, signal mixers, signal demodulators, and
oscillators.

Fig 2. view of a DIODE

The fundamental property of a diode is its tendency to

conduct electric current in only one direction. When the
cathode is negatively charged relative to the anode at a
voltage greater than a certain minimum called forward
breakover, then current flows through the diode. If the
cathode is positive with respect to the anode, is at the same
voltage as the anode, or is negative by an amount less than
the forward breakover voltage, then the diode does not
conduct current. This is a simplistic view, but is true for
diodes operating as rectifiers, switches, and limiters. The
forward breakover voltage is approximately six tenths of a
volt (0.6 V) for silicon devices, 0.3 V for germanium devices,
and 1 V for selenium devices.

The above general rule notwithstanding, if the cathode

voltage is positive relative to the anode voltage by a great
enough amount, the diode will conduct current. The voltage
required to produce this phenomenon, known as the
avalanche voltage, varies greatly depending on the nature of
the semiconductor material from which the device is
fabricated. The avalanche voltage can range from a few volts
up to several hundred volts.

WHAT IS LASER DIODES..??

A laser diode is a laser where the

active medium is a semiconductor
similar to that found in a light-
emitting diode. The most common
and practical type of laser diode is
formed from a p-n junction and
powered by injected electric

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current. These devices are sometimes referred to as injection
laser diodes to distinguish them.

Fig.3 laser diode

The most common and practical type of laser diode is formed

from a p-n junction and powered by injected electric current.
These devices are sometimes referred to as injection laser
diodes to distinguish them from (optically) pumped laser
diodes, which are more easily manufactured in the laboratory.

HOW LASER DIODES WORK..??

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Laser diodes are manufactured using the same processes used
to make other semiconductors, like computer chips and solar
cells. The main difference is that laser diodes have a long and
narrow channel between the semiconductor layers that acts as
a waveguide for the laser light. As with other light emitting
diodes, when an electrical current flows through through a
laser diode, charge carriers combine where the semiconductor
layers meet and energy is released as light. The light is
confined inside the waveguide where it is reflected and
amplified until it exits through one end.

A laser diode resembles a light emitting diode, in which

electrons flowing across a p-n junction (in a diode) find
themselves in conduction levels of the p semiconductor, with
lots of excess energy. These excited electrons give up their
excess energy by emitting light and they drop down into empty
valence levels with much less energy. In a laser diode, the
region in which this energy release occurs is a very narrow
channel with mirrored ends. Instead of emitting their light
spontaneously, the electrons experience stimulated emission.
Light bounces back and forth between the ends of the channel
and is amplified as it passes new excited electrons. Because all
of the light produced by a laser diode emerges from one end of
this very narrow channel, it experiences severe diffraction and
spreads out into a wide, cone-shaped beam..

HOW THE LASER WORKS EFFECT..??

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 Fig.4 circuit diagram of the laser diode

In a laser diode, we take things a stage further to make the

emerging light more pure and powerful. Instead of using silicon
as the semiconductor, we use a different material, notably an
alloy of aluminium and gallium arsenide (indium gallium
arsenide phosphide is another popular choice). Electrons are
injected into the diode, they combine with holes, and some of
their excess energy is converted into photons, which interact
with more incoming electrons, helping to produce more photons
—and so on in a kind of self-perpetuating process called
resonance. This repeated conversion of incoming electrons into
outgoing photons is analogous to the process of stimulated
emission that occurs in a conventional, gas-based laser.

In a conventional laser, a concentrated light beam is produced

by "pumping" the light emitted from atoms repeatedly between
two mirrors. In a laser diode, an equivalent process happens
when the photons bounce back and forth in the microscopic
junction (roughly one micrometer wide) between the slices of p-
type and n-type semiconductor, which is technically known as a
Fabry-Perot resonant cavity (a kind of interferometer). The
amplified laser light eventually emerges from the polished end
of the gap in a beam parallel to the junction. From there, it goes
on to read music from your CD, scan the price on your
cornflakes, print out your college dissertation, or do a thousand
other useful things.

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 LIGHT
PRODUCTION
BY LASER LIGHT
Fig.5 diagram of
spreading of the laser
light

A small voltage is used to

start the hole-electron
process going at the junction.
The positive-charged holes on
the p-doped material move to
combine with the negatively
charged electrons on the n-doped material releasing energy to
produce light in the form of photons. The release of the energy
is located in a channel in the laser diode. It has mirrored ends.
The light moves back and forth between the ends. It is amplified
as it goes by other energized electrons. The light then passes
out of one end of the channel and spreads into cone shaped
beam. This is due to diffraction. A lens turns this laser diode
light into a round beam.

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THEORY OF OPERATION

Fig.6 working
of laser diode

A laser diode, like many other semiconductor devices, is formed

by doping a very thin layer on the surface of a crystal wafer.
The crystal is doped to produce an n-type region and a p-type
region, one above the other, resulting in a p-n junction, or
diode.

Laser diodes form a subset of the larger classification of

semiconductor p-n junction diodes. As with any semiconductor
p-n junction diode, forward electrical bias causes the two
species of charge carrier - holes and electrons - to be "injected"
from opposite sides of the p-n junction into the depletion
region, situated at its heart. Holes are injected from the p-
doped, and electrons from the n-doped, semiconductor. .

The difference between the photon-emitting semiconductor

laser and conventional phonon-emitting (non-light-emitting)
semiconductor junction diodes lies in the use of a different type
of semiconductor, one whose physical and atomic structure
confers the possibility for photon emission. These photon-

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emitting semiconductors are the so-called "direct bandgap"
semiconductors. The properties of silicon and germanium,
which are single-element semiconductors, have bandgaps that
do not align in the way needed to allow photon emission and
are not considered "direct."

TYPES OF LASER DIODE

The simple laser diode structure, described above, is extremely
inefficient. Such devices require so much power that they can
only achieve pulsed operation without damage. Although
historically important and easy to explain, such devices are not
practical.

Double heterostructure

lasers

Fig.7 Diagram of front view of a double

heterostructure laser diode

In these devices, a layer of low bandgap material is sandwiched

between two high bandgap layers. One commonly-used pair of
materials is gallium arsenide (GaAs) with aluminium gallium

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arsenide (AlxGa(1-x)As). Each of the junctions between different
bandgap materials is called a heterostructure, hence the name
"double heterostructure laser" or DH laser. The kind of laser
diode described in the first part of the article may be referred to
as a homojunction laser, for contrast with these more popular
devices.

Quantum well lasers

Fig.8 Diagram of front view of a simple quantum

well laser diode.

If the middle layer is made thin enough, it acts as a quantum

well. This means that the vertical variation of the electron's
wavefunction, and thus a component of its energy, is quantized.
The efficiency of a quantum well laser is greater than that of a
bulk laser because the density of states function of electrons in
the quantum well system has an abrupt edge that concentrates
electrons in energy states that contribute to laser action.

Lasers containing more than one quantum well layer are known
as multiple quantum well lasers. Multiple quantum wells

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improve the overlap of the gain region with the optical
waveguide mode.

Quantum cascade lasers

Fig.9 Diagram of front view of a simple quantum

cascade laser diode.

In a quantum cascade laser, the difference between quantum

well energy levels is used for the laser transition instead of the
bandgap. This enables laser action at relatively long
wavelengths, which can be tuned
simply by altering the thickness of
the layer. They are heterojunction
lasers.

Separate confinement
heterostructure lasers
The problem with the simple
quantum well diode described

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above is that the thin layer is simply too small to effectively
confine the light. To compensate, another two layers are added
on, outside the first three. These layers have a lower refractive
index than the centre layers, and hence confine the light
effectively. Such a design is called a separate confinement
heterostructure (SCH) laser diode.

Fig.10 helium-neon laser

Distributed

feedback lasers

Fig.11 Diagram of front view of a distribute

feedback laser

Distributed feedback lasers (DFB) are the most common

transmitter type in DWDM-systems. To stabilize the lasing
wavelength, a diffraction grating is etched close to the p-n
junction of the diode. This grating acts like an optical filter,
causing a single wavelength to be fed back to the gain region
and lase. Since the grating provides the feedback that is
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required for lasing, reflection from the facets is not required.
Thus, at least one facet of a DFB is anti-reflection coated. The
DFB laser has a stable wavelength that is set during
manufacturing by the pitch of the grating, and can only be
tuned slightly with temperature. DFB lasers are widely used in
optical communication applications where a precise and stable
wavelength is critical.

VCSEL (Vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting-

laser)

Vertical-cavity
surface-emitting
lasers (VCSELs) have
the optical cavity axis
along the direction of
current flow rather
than perpendicular to
the current flow as in
conventional laser
diodes. The active
region length is very
short compared with
the lateral dimensions
so that the radiation emerges from the surface of the cavity
rather than from its edge as shown in the figure. The reflectors
at the ends of the cavity are dielectric mirrors made from
alternating high and low refractive index quarter-wave thick
multilayer.
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Such dielectric mirrors provide a high degree of wavelength-
selective reflectance at the required free surface wavelength λ
if the thicknesses of alternating layers d1 and d2 with refractive
indices n1 and n2 are such that n1d1 + n2d2 = 1 / 2λ which
then leads to the constructive interference of all partially
reflected waves at the interfaces. But there is a disadvantage:
because of the high mirror reflectivities, VCSELs have lower
output powers when compared to edge-emitting lasers.

There are several advantages to producing VCSELs when

compared with the production process of edge-emitting lasers.
Edge-emitters cannot be tested until the end of the production
process. If the edge-emitter does not work, whether due to bad
contacts or poor material growth quality, the production time
and the processing materials have been wasted

FAILURE MODES OF THE LASER

DIODE
Laser diodes have the same reliability and failure issues as light
emitting diodes. In addition they are subject to catastrophic
optical damage (COD) when operated at higher power.

Many of the advances in reliability of diode lasers in the last 20

years remain proprietary to their developers. The reliability of a
laser diode can make or break a product line. Moreover,
"reverse engineering" is not always able to reveal the
differences between more-reliable and less-reliable diode laser
products.

At the edge of a diode laser, where light is emitted, a mirror is

traditionally formed by cleaving the semiconductor wafer to
form a specularly reflecting plane. This approach is facilitated
by the weakness of the [110] crystallographic plane in III-V
semiconductor crystals (such as GaAs, InP, GaSb, etc.)

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compared to other planes. A scratch made at the edge of the
wafer and a slight bending force causes a nearly atomically
perfect mirror-like cleavage plane to form and propagate in a
straight line across the wafer.

But it so happens that the atomic states at the cleavage plane

are altered (compared to their bulk properties within the
crystal) by the termination of the perfectly periodic lattice at
that plane. Surface states at the cleaved plane, have energy
levels within the (otherwise forbidden) bandgap of the
semiconductor.

Essentially, as a result when light propagates through the

cleavage plane and transits to free space from within the
semiconductor crystal, a fraction of the light energy is absorbed
by the surface states whence it is converted to heat by phonon-
electron interactions. This heats the cleaved mirror. In addition
the mirror may heat simply because the edge of the diode laser
—which is electrically pumped—is in less-than-perfect contact
with the mount that provides a path for heat removal. The
heating of the mirror causes the bandgap of the semiconductor
to shrink in the warmer areas. The bandgap shrinkage brings
more electronic band-to-band transitions into alignment with
the photon energy causing yet more absorption.

APPLICATION OF LASER DIODE

• Laser diodes find wide use in telecommunication as easily
modulated and easily coupled light sources for fibre optics
communication. They are used in various measuring
instruments, such as rangefinders. Another common use is
in barcode readers. Visible lasers, typically red but later
also green, are common as laser pointers. Both low and
high-power diodes are used extensively in the printing
industry both as light sources for scanning (input) of
images and for very high-speed and high-resolution
printing plate (output) manufacturing. Infrared and red
laser diodes are common in CD players, CD-ROMs and DVD

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 technology. Violet lasers are used in HD DVD and Blu-ray
technology.
• Diode lasers have also found many applications in laser
absorption spectrometry (LAS) for high-speed, low-cost
assessment or monitoring of the concentration of various
species in gas phase. High-power laser diodes are used in
industrial applications such as heat treating, cladding,
seam welding and for pumping other lasers, such as diode
pumped solid state lasers.
• Applications of laser diodes can be categorized in various
ways. Most applications could be served by larger solid
state lasers or optical parametric oscillators, but the low
cost of mass-produced diode lasers makes them essential
for mass-market applications. Diode lasers can be used in
a great many fields; since light has many different
properties (power, wavelength and spectral quality, beam
quality, polarization, etc.) it is interesting to classify
applications by these basic properties.
• Many applications of diode lasers primarily make use of
the "directed energy" property of an optical beam. In this
category one might include the laser printers, bar-code
readers, image scanning, illuminators, designators, optical
data recording, combustion ignition, laser surgery,
industrial sorting, industrial machining, and directed
energy weaponry. Some of these applications are
emerging while others are well-established.

REFERENCE
Steele, Robert V. (2005). "Diode-laser market grows at a slower rate".
Laser Focus World 41.
http://lfw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?
Section=ARCHI&ARTICLE_ID=221439&VERSION_NUM=4&p=12.

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 Sam's Laser FAQ by Samuel M. Goldwasser.

Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics Edge-emitting lasers

Application and technical notes explaining current and temperature

control of laser diodes

B. Van Zeghbroeck's Principles of Semiconductor Devices.

Saleh, Bahaa E. A. and Teich, Malvin Carl (1991).

Fundamentals of Photonics.

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