The life cycle assessment of a telecommunications semiconductor laser

Life cycle assessment is a technical management tool that can help quantify the environmental impacts associated with products or processes. For example, it relates the energy and materials used or during the manufacture, distribution, operation and disposal of a product to their impact on the environment as fossil reserve depletion, ozone depletion, landfill volume, etc. This paper focuses on the practicalities of conducting a life cycle assessment on a semiconductor communications laser