Thermal runaway in semiconductor laser windows.

A small perturbation model is used to obtain analytical expressions for the critical or runaway power density for laser windows constructed of semiconductor materials. These equations are used to compute the critical power density for several realistic window installations taking account of the finite value of realizable convection cooling coefficients. Computations were prepared for silicon transmitting 4 .0-micro. radiation and for germanium at 10.6 micro. In this way it is shown that power densities are principally limited by the effectiveness of cooling from the face of the window, that is, the surface perpendicular to the laser beam. Since convection cooling coefficients are small the transmission of high power densities through semiconductor windows is therefore contingent upon finding more effective means to cool the window from the face. Finally, a simplified calculation was made in an attempt to account for nonuniformity of the incident laser beam. a given window, but not severely. The results show the onuniformity reduces the runaway power for a given window, but not severely.