Thermal dissipation modeling in optical components modules for electrical power consumption optimization
Résumé
In a semi-conductor optical amplifier (SOA) as in any other optical devices, the performances that can be reached is strongly dependent on the chip temperature. For example, the optical output power of a laser or the optical gain in a SOA is reduced when the temperature of the junction increases. This latter can be controlled or monitored thanks to a thermo-electronic cooler (or a Peltier element) and a thermistor. In this paper, we first have calculated the thermal resistance of various semiconductor structures such as buried or ridge waveguides lasers. We then calculate the Peltier consumption necessary to maintain a given temperature. The influence of the thermistor position as well as the module conception have been investigated in these calculation. The size of the different mechanical elements, the nature and thermal properties of the material use for the module fabrication have been found to play an important role in the thermal performance of the optical modules. The Peltier size is defined by maximizing its efficiency. It depends on the power to be dissipated as well as the temperature operation of the device. The latter depends on the performance expected by the optical devices. We discussed the optimization of the device structure associated to its packaging to find the best compromise between performance and electrical consumption. The trade-off found depends on the temperature at which the device operates as well as on the thermal power to be dissipated.