Thermal analysis of laser diode module by an equivalent electrical network method

Abstract:

An equivalent electrical network method is presented in this paper to analyze the cooling characteristics of a laser diode module (LDM). And a modified equivalent model of a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) with an adjunctive thermal resistance and a contact resistance is proposed. The performance of a commercial TEC has been simulated. The thermal analysis of a LDM incorporated with a TEC has been performed by using an equivalent circuit model of the LDM. In the analysis the change of LD current, TEC current, and the ambient temperature are all considered. It shows that the equivalent circuit approach is an offective tool for the qualitative analysis of TEC and LDM.