PACS 42.55.Px, 42.60.Lh, 78.45.+h Height and width of the ridge forming the laser diode waveguide determine threshold current density and lateral mode stability. We measure the optical near-field of the laser mode and simulate the twodimensional mode distribution including waveguide losses and optical gain. The simulations show that weak guiding and not current spreading is the major cause for increased threshold current densities in weakly guided laser diodes. The near-field measurements show fundamental and higher order modes for nominally identical ridge laser diodes. We demonstrate that asymmetric losses in the waveguide bias the lateral mode competition towards higher order modes for an intermediate range of index guiding. This asymmetric damping is specific for (Al,In)GaN laser diodes due to absorption introduced in the p-waveguide by magnesium doping. This competition of lateral modes can also be seen spectrally as two longitudinal mode combs of different optical gain.
Near- and far-field dynamics of edge-emitting (Al,In)GaN laser diodes are measured simultaneously with a 100 nm spatial and a 5 ns temporal resolution using a scanning near-field microscope. We reconstruct the phase distribution at the laser diode facet. Beam steering and near-field mode dynamics are interpreted in terms of thermal and carrier induced change of refractive index in the waveguide.
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