Micro thermal management of high-power diode laser bars

Abstract

Lifetime and reliability of high-power diode laser bars are sensitively related to operating temperature, mounting stress, and solder electromigration. These three factors have been taken into account for the development of a new packaging technology for 1 cm laser bars of gallium arsenide. We examine the use of chemical-vapor-deposited (CVD) diamond as heatspreaders in order to reduce thermal resistance of a microchannel cooler for liquid cooling. We show that it is possible to perform hard soldering on a CVD-diamond with a new technique. Additionally, we present a controlled water cooling system fit to the flow characteristics of the cooler. It permits one to adjust the emission wavelength of the diode lasers by changing the water flux.