A study on the reliability of indium solder die bonding of high power semiconductor lasers

High power semiconductor lasers have found increased applications. Indium solder is one of the most widely used solders in high power laser die bonding. Indium solder has some advantages in laser die bonding. It also has some concerns, however, especially in terms of reliability. In this paper, the reliability of indium solder die bonding of high power broad area semiconductor lasers was studied. It was found that indium solder bonded lasers have much shorter lifetime than AuSn solder bonded devices. Catastrophic degradation was observed in indium solder bonded lasers. Nondestructive optical and acoustic microscopy was conducted during the lifetime testing to monitor the failure process and destructive failure analysis was performed after the lasers failed. It was found that the sudden failure was caused by electromigration of indium solder at the high testing current of up to 7A. It was shown that voids were created and gradually enlarged by indium solder electromigration, which caused local heating near...