Abstract
Recently there have been intense research efforts in developing semiconductor laser arrays with most of the work expended on gain-guided devices. The coupled-mode formalism that was applied to the problem of solving the lateral array modes (supermodes)1 is not the optimal method for analyzing gain-guided arrays. First, closed-form coupled-mode solutions are obtained only in the case of arrays with identical lasers. In actual devices the gain is nonuniform across the array; hence, laser arrays, especially those with gain-guided lasers, are necessarily nonidentical. (In lasers with separate contacts, these gain variations can even be controlled by adjusting the current in each stripe.) Second, when applying the coupled-mode formalism, it is generally necessary to calculate coupling coefficients, which is not a simple task in gain-guided lasers.2 Third, the coupled-mode formalism is an approximation that is accurate only in the limit of weak coupling.
© 1985 Optical Society of America
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