Comparison of contact designs for improved stability of broad area semiconductor lasers

Patterned electrode designs are used to control optical mode shape in high-power semiconductor lasers by localizing current injection. In this letter, we present comparison of current density profiles in the active layer achieved by different contact designs. Single-voltage digitated contact, distributed regular and random Gaussian contact configurations are studied using numerical solutions of semiconductor device equations that govern electrostatic potential and carrier concentrations in three spatial dimensions. The results of our calculations indicate that lateral current profile is influenced by the contact shape in the transverse direction and the thickness of the junction on the contact side.