Investigations on Operational Reliability of 808 nm QCW Laser Diode Half-Bars for Space-Borne Applications

Laser diode half-bars with 16 emitters were manufactured and qualified for pulsed high-power operation on the satellite MERLIN. Stress accelerated life tests of 20 laser half-bars were performed for 5•10
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shots. No single emitter failure was detected resulting in 99.99% reliability over mission lifetime.