We describe the performance and reliability of high power vertical diode stacks based on silicon monolithic microchannel coolers (SiMMs) operating at >1000W/cm 2 CW at 808 and 940nm. The monolithic nature of these stacks makes them inherently robust and compact. Typical emitting dimensions for a 10-bar stack are ~8.8mm x 10mm with CW output power up to 1.5kW. Originally developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and now actively being developed for commercial applications at Coherent, this technology offers several advantages over current copper-based micro-channel coolers. These devices do not require use of DI water, strict monitoring and control of the pH level, careful control of the water velocity, or sealed cooling systems. The need for hydrostatic seals is also drastically reduced. A typical ten bar stack requires only 2 o-ring seals, compared to 20 such seals for a similar stack using copper microchannel cooling. Mature and readily available wet etching technology allows for cost effective batch fabrication of the sub-mount structure while achieving repeatable high precision components based on photolithographic fabrication processes.
Solid-state-laser and fiber laser pumping, reprographics, medical and materials processing applications require high power, high-brightness bars and fiber-coupled arrays. Conductively cooled laser diode bars allow customers to simplify system design and reduce operational size, weight, and costs. We present results on next generation high brightness, high reliability bars and fiber-coupled arrays at 790-830 nm, 940 nm and 980 nm wavelengths.By using novel epitaxial structures, we have demonstrated highly reliable 808 nm, 30% fill-factor conductively cooled bars operating at 60W CW mode, corresponding to a linear power density (LPD) of 20 mW/µm. At 25°C, the bars have shown greater than 50% wall-plug-efficiency (WPE) when operating at 60W. Our novel approach has also reduced the fast-axis divergence FWHM from 31° to less than 24°. These bars have a 50% brightness improvement compared to our standard products with this geometry.At 980nm, we have demonstrated greater than 100W CW from 20% fill-factor conductively cooled bars, corresponding to a LPD of 50 mW/µm. At 25°C, the WPE for 976nm bars consistently peaks above 65% and remains greater than 60% at 100W. We coupled the beam output from those high-brightness bars into fiber-array-packages ("FAPs"), and we also achieved high-brightness and high-efficiency FAPs. We demonstrated 60W from a 600µm core-diameter fiberbundle with a high WPE of 55%, and a low numerical aperture of 0.115. The brightness of such FAPs is four times higher than our standard high-power 40W FAP products at Coherent. Ongoing life test data suggests an extrapolated lifetime greater than 10,000 hours at 80W CW operating-condition based on 30%FF conductively cooled bar geometry.
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