Thermodynamics of facet damage in cleaved AlGaAs lasers

The time dependence of catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) is investigated for the cw operation of AlGaAs quantum well lasers with cleaved unprotected and protected mirrors. Based on the rate equation for a COMD failure it is found that facet heating leading to COMD depends on the quantum wells and on the reflectivity modification of the protected mirrors. The investigations show that control of damage in the mirror region of the AlGaAs lasers is feasible and leads to very reliable devices.