Review of Heat Dissipation of High Power Diode Lasers

In recent years, heat dissipation problem caused by the increasing power has limited the development of the diode laser. The rise of temperature will lead to the poor performance of the diode laser and for the purpose of keeping good performance under the condition of high power the heat dissipation of the laser chips must be enhanced. The article pointed out the importance of cooling the diode laser by analyzing the influence of temperature on various indicators of laser's performance. The paper focused on the cooling methods of fluid for the reason that it played a dominant role. The cooling methods of fluid were divided into two main categories which were the traditional cooling methods and the new cooling methods. The former mainly includes plate heat sink cooling and large channel cooling and the later includes micro-channels, spray, jet impingement, heat pipe cooling and liquid metal cooling. The merit and demerit of each method were analyzed. Finally, two indicators including the heat flow density and temperature difference were considered in order to evaluate the application prospect of various methods on the laser cooling.