Influence of the mounting configuration on the transient thermal behavior of high power laser diode arrays

Operation parameters of high power laser diodes such as emission wavelength, threshold current, optical output power and lifetime depend sensitively on the temperature of the active region. For many applications, knowledge about the temporal evolution of the temperature of active region is necessary to optimize the operating conditions. This paper describes experimental and theoretical work on the influence of different mounting configurations on the temperature transients in the active regions of high power laser diodes. We investigate the transient thermal behavior in a range between 10 ns and CW operation. In this range the modeling is verified by excellent agreement of experimental data and theory.