How did I kill my diode?

[teejammer]

Hi,
I'm relatively new to building lasers, but I've been messing around with an M140 diode for a while now, and decided to incorporate it into another project.
The idea was to have a driver connected to a standard latching switch, that when pressed would power the diode. Before soldering all that together, I decided to connect my bench supply to the switch, and the switch to the diode. I had the bench set up so it wouldn't output over 1amp (m140 is rated for 1.2 amps) and pressed this switch. I'm sure you can guess what happened next, my diode's dead . Can anyone explain to me why this happened? And can I just use a switch in the future, or do I need something like a MOSFET?

 

[Sowee7]

May have been your bench PSU, it’s not recommended to use a laser diode connected to a bench PSU directly unless yours is very good

 

[teejammer]

May have been your bench PSU, it’s not recommended to use a laser diode connected to a bench PSU directly unless yours is very good

So, If I had a driver connected to a switch, and that to the diode, would it have been alright?

 

[Sowee7]

So, If I had a driver connected to a switch, and that to the diode, would it have been alright?

Probably