Abstract
This paper presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of a one-dimensional microscale heater array testbed that allows assessment of the spatial variation of temperature. Each pixel of the array acts as both a heater and a resistive temperature sensor simultaneously. The heater/sensor array is designed to mimic heat generation by line arrays of vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), in order to assess microfluidic cooling schemes for these laser arrays. The array discussed in this paper is a linear micro array consisting of 100 heater elements, each of which has a 75μm pitch, and a nominal 20μmx20μm resistive heating area. Platinum is used for the heater as well as the resistive thermal sensor, since the resistance of platinum as a function of temperature shows extremely good linearity. A total of 101 probe pads are placed between the pixels to apply current for the heater function or to determine temperature for the sensor function. The array is fabricated on a silicon substrate and is diced to a size of 1.2mm × 8mm to match a typical VCSEL array size. Local heating and local cooling experiments (i.e., individual heater pixel or pixel groups) have been performed and demonstrate the versatility of the fabricated thermal testbed.
Theoretical analysis and characterization of injection current distribution and influences on optical near-field modes in gain-guided vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers
