Experimental study of beam steering in 980-nm InGaP cladding lasers

The beam steering phenomenon was directly observed by means of backplane electroluminescence in 980 nm InGaP cladding power lasers. The electroluminescence of the lasers which showed lateral beam steering had a periodic pattern along the active region, which was assumed to be due to spatial hole burning. The period of this pattern was roughly estimated using the effective refractive index method. A laser satisfying the cut-off condition for higher lateral modes did not exhibit a periodic pattern of electroluminescence.