Effect of thermal processes on critical operation conditions of high-power laser diodes

Using numerical and analytical techniques in a threedimensional approximation, we have modelled the effect of spatial thermoelastic stress nonuniformity in a laser diode – heat sink system on the output characteristics of the device in different operation modes. We have studied the influence of the pulse duration, the geometry of the laser system and its thermophysical parameters on the critical pump current density, in particular for state-of-the-art heat conductive substrate materials. The proposed approach has been used to optimise the laser diode assembly process in terms of the quality of laser crystal positioning (bonding) on a heat sink.