Modeling of current spreading in high-power broad-area lasers and its impact on the lateral far field divergence

Abstract

The effect of current spreading on the lateral farfield divergence of highpower broadarea lasers is investigated with a timedependent model using different descriptions for the injection of carriers into the active region. Most simulation tools simply assume a spatially constant injection current density below the contact stripe and a vanishing current density beside. Within the driftdiffusion approach, however, the injected current density is obtained from the gradient of the quasiFermi potential of the holes, which solves a Laplace equation in the pdoped region if recombination is neglected. We compare an approximate solution of the Laplace equation with the exact solution and show that for the exact solution the highest farfield divergence is obtained. We conclude that an advanced modeling of the profiles of the injection current densities is necessary for a correct description of farfield blooming in broadarea lasers.