Title :
Modular microchannel cooled heatsinks for high average power laser diode arrays
Author :
Beach, Ray ; Benett, William J. ; Freitas, Barry L. ; Mundinger, D. ; Comaskey, Brian J. ; Solarz, Richard W. ; Emanuel, Mark A.
Author_Institution :
Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab., CA, USA
fDate :
4/1/1992 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
Detailed performance results for an efficient and low thermal impedance laser diode array heatsink are presented. High duty factor or CW operation of fully filled laser diode arrays is made possible at high average power. Low thermal impedance is achieved using a liquid coolant and laminar flow through microchannels. The microchannels are fabricated in silicon using an anisotropic chemical etching process. A modular rack-and-stack architecture is adopted for the heatsink design, allowing arbitrarily large two-dimensional arrays to be fabricated and easily maintained. The excellent thermal control of the microchannel cooled heatsinks is ideally suited to pump array requirements for high average power crystalline lasers
Keywords :
semiconductor laser arrays; Si; anisotropic chemical etching process; average power; continuous wave operation; crystalline lasers; duty factor; fully filled laser diode arrays; heatsink design; high average power laser diode arrays; laminar flow; liquid coolant; low thermal impedance laser diode array heatsink; modular microchannel cooled heatsinks; modular rack-and-stack architecture; performance results; two-dimensional arrays; Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Coolants; Diode lasers; Heat sinks; Impedance; Microchannel; Optical arrays; Power lasers; Semiconductor laser arrays; Silicon;
Journal_Title :
Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of