Abstract

Emerging laser applications require the operation of diode laser bars at high cw powers or at high peak powers with high repetition rates. In such applications, the efficient dissipation of the waste heat produced by the laser becomes a significant engineering challenge. Of all the heat sink materials known, the diamond has the best properties. The best diamond has a high thermal conductivity (20 W/cm К at room temperature) and a very high thermal diffusivity (11 cm²/s). The thermal conductivity is a factor of 5 greater than that of copper, and the thermal diffusivity is 10 times larger. While the superiority of the diamond as a heat sink material is generally recognized, it has been prohibitively expensive and difficult to obtain in suitably large sizes, because it is commonly produced from bulk grown crystals.

© 1990 Optical Society of America