Thermally balanced diode laser package

A diode laser array package comprising

• a heat sink submount,
• a first diode laser array mounted on said submount, said first diode laser array having a plurality of individually addressable laser elements for producing optical outputs,
• a second diode laser array mounted on said submount arranged back-to-back in tandem with said first diode laser array, said second diode laser array having a like plurality of individually addressable laser elements emitting light, each laser element of said second array being aligned in close proximity to a corresponding laser element of said first array, said laser elements of said first and second arrays having matched operating thermal characteristics, the laser elements of said second diode laser array forming heat generating thermal load elements for the corresponding laser elements of said first diode laser array,
• drive means for providing a separate modulated current signal to each laser element of said first diode laser array to produce separately modulated optical output beams from said first diode laser array and for providing to each laser element of said second diode laser array a modulated current signal that is complementary to the current signal provided to the corresponding laser element of the first array such that combined heat generation by each pair of corresponding laser elements from said first and second diode laser arrays is substantially constant in time.