Cooling of Laser Slab by Forced Convection through a Heat Sink

Abstract

The present study addresses a novel cooling scheme for the high-power solid-state laser slab. The scheme cools the laser slab by forced convection in a narrow channel through a heat sink. Numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the thermal effects of a Nd:YAG laser slab for heat sinks of different materials, including the undoped YAG, sapphire, and diamond. The results show that the convective heat transfer coefficient is non-uniform along the fluid flow direction due to the thermal entrance effect, causing a non-uniform temperature distribution in the slab. The heat sink lying between the coolant fluid and the pumped surface of the slab works to alleviate this non-uniformity and consequently improve the thermal stress distribution and reduce the maximum thermal stress of the slab. The diamond heat sink was found to be effective in reducing both the highest temperature and the maximum thermal stress; the sapphire heat sink was able to reduce the maximum thermal stress but not as effective in reducing the highest temperature; and the undoped YAG heat sink reduced the maximum thermal stress but tended to increase the highest temperature. Therefore, cooling with the diamond heat sink is most effective, and that with the sapphire heat sink follows; cooling with the undoped YAG heat sink may not apply if the highest temperature is a concern.