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 This
is a picture of laser diodes that were destroyed during our ESD testing.
This picture is real, not photoshopped.
The information presented on this web site
comes as the result of real ESD testing on real laser diodes. During our
research, we purchased dozens of laser diode drivers and laser heads, from
some of the best-known companies as well as the least-known companies. We
tested many different schemes for protecting a laser diode from ESD, and
you will find a list of the most common protection techniques shown on
this web site, along with reasons why they generally don’t work.
Why other schemes don’t work
So if the most common protection schemes
simply don’t work, why are they being used? It is our belief that
engineers have designed those protection schemes into products simply
using their own intuition, or simply out of observation that everyone else
does it a certain way, and therefore that way must work.
The problem with this approach is that ESD
presents unique challenges that transcend intuition. And the monkey-see,
monkey-do approach is clearly ineffective against ESD. Also, most
engineers do not have the specialized equipment or knowledge needed to do
ESD testing to see if the techniques are effective or not. Unlike
oscilloscopes and volt meters, ESD testing equipment is extremely
expensive, and this equipment is only made by a few companies in the
entire world.
Why we are confident in our results
Fortunately, at Pangolin, we have
two separate ESD discharge guns, two separate semiconductor curve tracers,
a 10 GigaSample digital oscilloscope, and a lot of other specialized
equipment necessary to perform ESD testing. Therefore having performed
these ESD tests using this equipment, we are confident in the results
presented on this web site.
We have also tested all kinds of laser
diodes -- everything from very low power 5mW can-type laser diodes, to
high-power infrared bars. Although all laser diodes are susceptible to ESD
to some extent, low power laser diodes are particularly susceptible to ESD.
Therefore, since the LASORB device will protect a low power laser diode
from ESD, it protects all laser diodes from ESD.
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