Diamond-Metal Composites: Solving the Heat Dissipation Challenge of High-Power Semiconductor Lasers

High-power semiconductor lasers boast advantages such as high electro-optical efficiency, easy modulation, small size and light weight. Meanwhile, they are among the devices with the highest heat flux density in the industry at present, featuring concentrated hot spots and extreme temperature sensitivity. Therefore, achieving efficient heat dissipation remains a crucial issue to be addressed. Aiming at the problems of excessively high heat flux density and poor thermal uniformity in the heat dissipation of current high-power lasers, diamond-metal composites (e.g., diamond-copper materials) possess outstanding advantages including ultra-high thermal conductivity, excellent thermal uniformity, matchable thermal expansion and compatibility with precision machining, making them an ideal choice for realizing efficient heat dissipation of high-power semiconductor lasers.

Specific Heat Dissipation Application Scenarios

Heat Dissipation in Semiconductor Laser Chip Packaging

Diamond-metal composites such as diamond-copper or diamond-aluminum composite heat dissipation materials retain the high thermal conductivity of diamond while overcoming its drawbacks of high brittleness and poor machinability, making them suitable for heat dissipation systems requiring complex mechanical processing. In scenarios such as single-tube high-power lasers, fiber lasers and solid-state laser pumping, diamond composites are usually directly used as heat sink substrates and microchannel heat sinks for chips to absorb the heat inside the chips and conduct it outward rapidly, thereby reducing the chip junction temperature. This in turn prevents optical power attenuation, wavelength drift and sudden lifespan reduction of the devices, effectively solving the heat dissipation problem.

Laser Bars

Laser bars serve as the core gain medium in solid-state lasers and generate enormous thermal loads during high-power operation. Diamond-copper composites can be used as heat dissipation plates on the end faces of laser bars at this time, and their high thermal conductivity enables rapid heat dissipation from the bar ends, thus suppressing the thermal lens effect and improving beam quality. In addition, for small-sized laser bars (e.g., laser diode arrays), diamond-copper composites can be directly processed into micro laser bar structures to further enhance heat dissipation performance.

Chip Covers

Chip covers specifically refer to the housings or support plates packaged around laser chips. Owing to their high strength and hardness, diamond-copper composites can be used to manufacture the housing structural components of lasers, which can not only support the chips but also undertake the heat dissipation function. In laser modules, the diamond-copper composite covers can be directly connected to heat sinks to form an integrated heat dissipation structure, greatly improving the heat dissipation efficiency.

Huazhe Semiconductor (Xiamen) Technology Co., Ltd., a national high-tech enterprise specialized in the R&D, production and sales of wide bandgap semiconductor materials, is committed to providing high-quality diamond-metal composites and application solutions for customers at home and abroad, offering strong support for the efficient heat dissipation of devices.