Abstract

Diamond is an ideal material for use in a diode laser heatsink as it has the highest room temperature thermal conductivity of any material. However, until now it has only been available in a planar, polished format. We describe the fabrication of a diamond heat-spreader with an integral optical fibre alignment V-groove. Firstly a sacrificial silicon substrate was patterned by anisotropic wet etching to produce V-shaped ridges and grooves. The diamond was then deposited by microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition (CVD) [1] over the micromachined silicon features. Figure 1 shows a free standing diamond V-shaped structure after removal of the silicon template. The thickness of the diamond film was conformal over the micromachined silicon ridges and grooves.

© 1998 IEEE