Do's and don'ts for SiPho heater qualification

Abstract

Recommended practices for SiPho heater qualification and design are outlined. Regarding heater qualification, the importance of proper thermal modelling and failure analysis to accurately determine the failure location and its temperature is highlighted. Also, it is motivated that properly accounting for thermal gradients at the failure location is crucial for a proper lifetime extrapolation. It will be shown that only by considering these two items (temperature at failure location and thermal gradients), accurate lifetime predictions can be obtained. Regarding heater design, potential ways to slow down failures and to decrease the temperature at the failure location are discussed.