Photoelastic effects on the emission patterns of InGaAsP ridge-waveguide lasers

The dielectric window opening in ridge waveguide lasers needed for the ohmic contact is shown to be able to cause appreciable stress deformations of the effective permittivity which defines the waveguide properties of the laser. For edge force values in the range of 40 dyn/ mu m, the emission properties of the laser, namely the near field and the threshold current, start to change. The results indicate that for still higher values, filamentation begins to occur. The numerical results presented use a global self-consistent model of the semiconductor laser and finite-element method for stress-field calculations.>