Characteristics of GaAs Laser Arrays Designed for Beam Addressable Memories

Four properties of GaAs laser arrays i.e., the efficiency, junction width, beam spread, and polarization, are important in assessing the usefulness of such devices in beam addressable memory applications. Measurements made on a series of arrays are presented. It is shown that the first two parameters closely approach the characteristics of an idealized array, while the latter two reduce the energy density at the storage plane to 25 percent of that at the junction surface. With existing devices, information has been written and recovered at a bit rate of 10 MHz.