An embodiment semiconductor optical device includes an optical waveguide including a core, and an active layer extending in the waveguide direction of the optical waveguide for a predetermined distance and arranged in a state in which the active layer can be optically coupled to the core. The core and the active layer are arranged in contact with each other. The core is formed of a material with a refractive index of about 1.5 to 2.2, such as SiN, for example. In addition, the core is formed to a thickness at which a higher-order mode appears. The higher-order mode is an E.sub.12 mode, for example.

A semiconductor laser diode is specified, the semiconductor laser diode includes a semiconductor layer sequence having an active layer having a main extension plane and which, in operation, is configured to generate light in an active region and emit light via a light-outcoupling surface, the active region extending from a back surface opposite the light-outcoupling surface to the light-outcoupling surface along a longitudinal direction in the main extension plane, the semiconductor layer sequence having a surface region on which a first cladding layer is applied in direct contact, the first cladding layer having a transparent material from a material system different from the semiconductor layer sequence, and the first cladding layer being structured and having a first structure.

A semiconductor light emitter includes a substrate, a semiconductor multilayer structure including a light emission unit that emits light in an oblique direction with respect to the substrate, a base on which the substrate is disposed, a holding member that holds the substrate at an angle set in advance with respect to the base, a temperature control unit disposed parallel to the substrate to adjust a temperature of the substrate, and a shaping optical system held against the substrate to shape a luminous flux emitted from the semiconductor multilayer structure.

A vertical cavity surface emitting laser according to an aspect of the present disclosure includes a substrate having a main surface including a III-V group compound semiconductor and a semiconductor structure having a post disposed on the main surface. The main surface has an off-angle greater than 2° with respect to a plane. The post includes an active layer and a current confinement layer that are arranged in a first direction intersecting the main surface. The current confinement layer includes an aperture portion and an insulation portion surrounding the aperture portion. The current confinement layer has a uniaxially symmetric shape or an asymmetric shape in a section perpendicular to the first direction.

An inspection method for inspecting a semiconductor laser device integrated with a semiconductor laser, an electroabsorption modulator for input the output of the semiconductor laser, and a photodetector for detecting intensity of part of the laser light output from the semiconductor laser includes a step of acquiring a transverse-mode light output characteristic that is a relationship between an injection current to the semiconductor laser and the output of the photodetector; a step of applying a reverse bias voltage to the electroabsorption modulator and acquiring a total light output characteristic that is a relationship between the injection current to the semiconductor laser and a photocurrent output from the electroabsorption modulator; and a step of comparing the total light output characteristic with the transverse-mode light output characteristic, thereby to determine whether or not the semiconductor laser device under inspection is abnormal in the transverse mode.

An on-chip miniarray of optically-coupled oxide-confined apertures of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) is realized by etching holes from the chip surface down to at least one aperture layer. Oxidation of the aperture layer results in electrically-isolated apertures suitable for current injection. The lateral distance between the aperture centers and the shape of the aperture is chosen to result in effective interaction of the neighboring optical modes in the related aperture regions through optical field coupling effect causing the interaction-induced splitting of the wavelengths of the optical modes. At least one aperture has a different surface area due to different spacing of the etched holes. Different aperture sizes result in different wavelengths of the coupled modes. Splitting of the cavity modes in a frequency domain 3-100 GHz extends the modulation bandwidth of the device due to photon-photon interaction effects.

Selective deposition of highly reflective coating and/or anti-reflecting coating over apertures of different VCSELs foiining a miniarray allows stabilizing lasing in a single coherent mode of the array. Most preferably, highly reflective coating covers the largest aperture and stabilizes the fundamental mode of the coherent array. Anti-reflecting coatings can be deposited on at least one other aperture to reduce the photon lifetime and increase the homogeneous broadening of the related resonant wavelength. Consequently broadening of the photon-photon interaction resonances between the cavity modes can be controlled. Such resonance broadening allows control over the shape of the current modulation curve of the miniarray of VCSELs with the frequency maximum defined by the splitting of the cavity modes and the broadening defined by the broadening of the photon resonances. An increase in −3dB modulation bandwidth of the VCSEL miniarray up to at least 70 GHz is possible.

Such miniarray of VCSELs enables efficient coupling of the emitted light to a multimode optical fiber with the efficiency of at least 70%.

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure include chip-scale laser sources, such as semiconductor laser sources, that produce directional beams with low spatial coherence. The lasing modes are based on the axial orbit in a stable cavity and have good directionality. To reduce the spatial coherence of emission, the number of transverse lasing modes can be increased by fine-tuning the cavity geometry. Decoherence is reached in as little as several nanoseconds. Such rapid decoherence facilitates applications in ultrafast speckle-free full-field imaging.

A semiconductor laser device includes a first conductivity type cladding layer having a refractive index n.sub.c1, a first conductivity type side optical guide layer, an active layer, a second conductivity type side optical guide layer, and a second conductivity type cladding layer of n.sub.c2 laminated in order on a first conductivity type semiconductor substrate, wherein an oscillation wavelength is λ, a first conductivity type low refractive index layer of n.sub.1 lower than n.sub.c1 having a thickness of d.sub.1 is provided between the first conductivity type side optical guide layer and the first conductivity type cladding layer, a second conductivity type low refractive index layer of n.sub.2 lower than n.sub.c2 having a thickness of d.sub.2 is provided between the second conductivity type side optical guide layer and the second conductivity type cladding layer, and a condition of a normalization frequency v.sub.2>v.sub.1 is satisfied.

A laser module includes a gain chip, temperature sensors, a case, and a thermoelectric cooler (TEC). The gain chip emits a laser beam. One of the temperature sensors measures a first temperature of the gain chip and is encompassed by the gain chip. The other temperature sensor is adhered to the case and measures a second temperature. The TEC tunes the laser beam emitted by the gain chip to a desired wavelength by varying the first temperature of the gain chip through a set of third temperatures for various values of the second temperature. The set of third temperatures is selected from various values of the first temperature such that the laser beam emitted at the set of third temperatures is mode-hop free.

The present embodiment relates to a single semiconductor light-emitting element including a plurality of light-emitting portions each of which is capable of generating light of a desired beam projection pattern and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor light-emitting element. In the semiconductor light-emitting element, an active layer and a phase modulation layer are formed on a common substrate layer, and the phase modulation layer includes at least a plurality of phase modulation regions arranged along the common substrate layer. The plurality of phase modulation regions are obtained by separating the phase modulation layer into a plurality of places after manufacturing the phase modulation layer, and as a result, the semiconductor light-emitting element provided with a plurality of light-emitting portions that have been accurately aligned can be obtained through a simple manufacturing process as compared with the related art.