Determining the temporally and radially resolved temperature distribution inside a pulsed broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser cavity

The authors experimentally determine temporally and radially resolved profiles of the temperature distribution within the cavity of a broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser in pulsed operation. For this, the recently discovered state of spatially incoherent emission [M. Peeters et al., Opt. Express 13, 9337 (2005)] is harnessed. Using single-shot measurements of spectrally resolved near field profiles acquired by a fast-gated charge coupled device camera, the wavelength shift due to heating of the device is temporally and radially resolved. From the wavelength shift the temperature shift is extracted, which finally allows for determination of absolute temperature profiles.