Beam properties of gain-guided array structures from low to high power operation

Here the behaviour of 1060 nm and 1150 nm gain-guided array lasers from low to high power operation is investigated, showing the limitations of these devices for external V-shaped cavity applications. The light-current characteristics and lateral near- and far-field distributions of 400 mum wide arrays consisting of periodic elements with a width of 10 mum and different pitches, as well as 5, 10 and 20 mum wide single emitter have been measured to study the influence of emitter geometry and spacing to the array modes. It is shown, that the double lobed far-field belongs to array modes which origin from the coupling of the periodic array elements, whereas different mode orders have slightly different far-field lobe spacing.