Design and Experimental Study of an Efficient Controlled Cooling System for Optical Communication Laser Diodes

Abstract

Optical communication systems (OCSs) have become increasingly important in recent decades because these systems provide high-speed, reasonable cost connectivity. One of the most important parts of OCSs is their optical source, where the laser diode (LD) is the most widely used source type. The devices used to settle and control the laser diode temperature are vital to the operation of OCSs. This paper proposes an efficient controlled cooling system for optical communication LDs using a thermoelectric cooler controlled by an Arduino Uno microcontroller. To accomplish precise and fast control of LD temperature, a proportional integral derivatives algorithm is used. The control program was run on the Arduino Uno board. Analysis of the proposed system model was first performed using a simulation in MATLAB. Robust results were obtained, showing that the LD temperature decreased from 70°C to 25°C in 170 seconds with stable system performance across 6,000 seconds of operation. A second analysis was conducted by constructing the proposed controlled cooling system and implementing real-time testing of its performance. The real-time implementation shows that the proposed system decreases the LD temperature from 71°C to the setpoint temperature (25°C) in 176 seconds. This finding shows a fast, smooth system response with only negligible overshooting and demonstrates the stability of the system performance across 6,000 seconds of testing.