Photo-Induced Degradation in Strained ZnSe

Photo-induced degradation phenomena in strained ZnSe were investigated. (111) ZnSe substrates were bi-axially strained due to film deposition, and their cleaved (110) planes were exposed to a focused He-Cd laser for several thousands of seconds at room temperature. Although photolumincscence intensities decreased with the irradiation for all samples, the decreasing rates depended on the strains. Compressed regions degraded faster than diluted regions. No-strained regions de- graded slower than the others. Conventional ZnSe based lasers have an active layer with compressive strains. Our results show that the laser with a diluted or no-strained active layer possibly survives longer.