Ion Cleaning of Facets for Improving the Reliability of High Power 980nm Semiconductor Lasers

We report a simple and available way of improving the reliability of high power InGaAs 980nm lasers by cleaning the facets using Ar ion before the protecting films have been coated. The Ar cleaning can remove the impurity and the oxide on the air-cleaved facets of laser diodes. It is proven that the way has marked effect on reducing the gradual degradation rate of laser diodes and improving the catastrophic--optical--damage threshold.