A. Barwolff et al., ANALYSIS OF THERMAL-BEHAVIOR OF HIGH-POWER SEMICONDUCTOR-LASER ARRAYSBY MEANS OF THE FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD (FEM), Journal of thermal analysis, 45(3), 1995, pp. 417-436
New results of steady-state two-dimensional finite-element computation
s of temperature distributions of high power semiconductor laser array
s are presented. The influence of different thermal loads on the 2D te
mperature distribution in AlGaAs/GaAs gain-guided laser arrays is inve
stigated. The FEM model is tested by comparing it with analytical solu
tions. For numerical convenience, the latter is rewritten in a novel f
orm, which is free of overflow problems. The maximum temperatures calc
ulated by both methods agree within 1%. Several factors determining th
e thermal resistance of the device are quantitatively examined: the ra
tio of light emitting to non-emitting areas along the active zone, the
amount of Joule losses, the current spreading, the solder thickness,
and voids in the solder. This yields design rules for optimum thermal
performance.