Heat Dissipation Performance Analysis of Semiconductor Lasers with Microchannel Structure Inspired by Biomimetic Plant Leaves

Abstract

Semiconductor lasers generate a significant amount of heat during operation, which can lead to various issues, including performance degradation and structural deformation of the housing. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel cooling channel design inspired by the natural vascular architecture of plant leaves. This biomimetic design, referred to as the bionic vane cooling channel, has been optimized by manipulating key variables such as the height of the cooling gap, the angle between the primary and secondary channels, and the rate of water flow at the inlet. A comprehensive series of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and numerical analyses were conducted. The results indicate that with a constant inlet Reynolds number (Re), an increase in the height of the cooling gap significantly enhances the heat dissipation capacity. Specifically, when the cooling gap height in type I, type II, and type III structures is increased from 2 mm to 4 mm, the Nusselt Number (Nu) improves by 25.74%, 12.48%, and 15.80%, respectively. Additionally, adjusting the angle between the primary and secondary channels also increases the heat dissipation capacity. For example, increasing the angle from 45° to 65° results in Nu improvements of 42.07%, 26.07%, and 30.84% for Models I, II, and III, respectively. At a Reynolds number of 20,000, the enhancements in Nu were found to be 90.96%, 36.19%, and 50.41%, respectively. The study further includes a simulation analysis of the radiator's structural deformation. The findings suggest that increasing the angle between the primary and secondary channels can significantly reduce deformation. For instance, at an angle of 45°, deformation exceeded 4 × 10-3 mm, whereas at 65°, the deformation was less than 1 × 10-3 mm. This study introduces a novel approach to enhancing both the heat dissipation efficiency and the operational stability of semiconductor lasers.

Keywords

• semiconductor lasers
• microchannel
• radiator
• computational fluid dynamics
• heat dissipation
• biomimetic plant leaves