A Light Weight High Heat Flux Cooling System for Solid State Lasers

High-performance and high-power electronic semiconductor devices, such as solid state lasers, solid state motor drivers, RF power amplifiers, radar T/R modules among others, are used extensively in military and commercial applications. As the devices get more powerful while their volumes and weights are reduced continuously, there is an urgent need to develop advanced high heat flux cooling technologies for current and future high power density devices. A light weight high heat flux cooling system is proposed for current and future high average power solid state lasers. Its feasibility will identified and related key technical issues will be investigated; an advanced evaporator will be prototyped for cooling a high power laser diode array and its cooling capability will be verified by prototype testing during Phase I. The proposed cooling system will be designed and its performance will be analyzed and improved. A successful demonstration of the proposed technology will provide a powerful and reliable approach for current thermal management challenge in high energy laser development. Furthermore it will improve the performance and reliability of other high power electronic components and devices. The proposed technology has significant commercial values in fields of power electronics, optics, military electronics, material processing and machining.