Research on the Thermal Distribution Homogenization of High-Power Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers

To mitigate the central heat accumulation in vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays during operation, homogenize the temperature field distribution, and enhance the overall output power of the laser array, this article establishes a 3-D thermoelectric coupling physical model. The study investigates the impact of missing units at different positions within the array on thermal crosstalk and proposes an algorithm aimed at minimizing the difference in the array’s thermal coupling factor matrix. The effectiveness of this algorithm in homogenizing the array’s thermal distribution is verified through thermal simulations. Various array configurations with different layouts are designed and fabricated, and the power–current characteristics and spectral data of the devices before and after optimization are successfully obtained. For the optimized $3\times 3$ and $5\times 5$ arrays, the peak powers reach 150.1 and 175.4 mW, respectively. The photoelectric conversion efficiency is improved by 23.92% and 13.63% compared to the pre-optimization state. Moreover, the optimized array structures reduce the wavelength redshift by 3.29 and 1.24 nm. By optimizing the layout of VCSEL array units, the optimized devices exhibit superior thermal characteristics.