Study on the thermal characteristics of GaN-based laser diodes

In this work, we have analyzed the thermal properties of a GaN-based LD (laser diode) as functions of input powers, cooling conditions, and ambient temperatures. It was found that the thermal resistance has a slight change with input current under the forced cooling condition. In contrast to the forced cooling condition, significant change of thermal resistance was observed under the natural cooling condition. When the ambient temperature was increased from 0°C to 50°C, the measured thermal resistance was increased from 20 K/W to 27.5 K/W.