Improving the opto-thermal performance of transmissive laser-based white light sources through beam shaping

Laser diodes have been proposed as a good replacement for light-emitting diodes in high-luminance white light sources. However, laser diodes typically generate very sharp temperature gradients inside the colour-converting elements (CCE) used to produce white light. This poses a thermal management problem in transmissive configurations, where most of the thermal dissipation occurs at the edges of the CCE. The hot spot in the center of the CCE typically drives the efficiency of the system down due to thermal quenching. In this work, we propose a strategy to tackle this issue that is based purely on optical manipulation. By using a free-form lens, the radiation pattern of the laser diode exciting the CCE is tailored so that its power distribution is skewed towards the periphery of the CCE: the zone with the highest thermal dissipation. With this technique, the maximum temperature inside the CCE can be significantly lower than when uniformly illuminating the CCE. Additionally, by lowering the temperature inside the CCE, this technique excites the CCE with a higher radiant flux, allowing higher luminance to be extracted from the system. These results were obtained with a realistic opto-thermal simulation framework and were then experimentally verified.