Field solutions for the lateral modes of stripe geometry injection lasers

This paper compares the lateral mode patterns of stripe geometry lasers produced by two theories: 1) an approximate effective dielectric method and 2) an exact method. The exact method for calculating modes uses an expansion of Hermite-Gaussian functions. For small normalized frequencies and a depression of the refractive index under the stripe, the fundamental lateral mode shows structure usually associated with leaky waveguide modes.