We destroyed hundreds of laser diodes –
so you don’t have to!

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.