Assessing the impact of thermal barriers on the thermal lens shape in high power broad area diode lasers

Measured thermal profiles on GaAs broad area diode lasers (P
_opt
> 10 W, λ = 910 nm) were reproduced in FEM simulation, indicating an unforeseen thermal barrier between laser chip and metallization. An investigation of that barrier potentially yields design- and packaging improvements for increased radiance, since thermal lensing strongly determines in-plane beam quality.