Finite Element Analysis of Miniature Thermoelectric Cooler for the Thermal Management of Si-Based Photonic Integrated Circuits

Today's electronic and photonic devices are facing a bottleneck in removing and managing the excess heat flux due to its progressive miniaturization and integration density. Generation of high heat flux during device operation has become a major challenge and makes the Si-based photonic integrated circuits (PIC) less efficient to function at the desired temperature. Hence, it is essential to remove/ manage the heat flux to maintain efficient and reliable operation of the device. The state-of-art solution to control device temperature involves macro thermoelectric coolers (TEC), which are inefficient in meeting the thermal management requirement for photonic integrated circuits (PIC). Thermal management of these optoelectronic chips using a micro-thermoelectric coolers (µTECs) can be a better proposition, as it can be integrated directly on the photonic chip by removing the large macro-TECs, which will allow precise control of the thermal load [1]. µTECs integrated with optoelectronic devices (lasers, modulators, etc.) can handle large heat flux, with fast response time and can provide high device performance with reduced cost [2].