We present a novel concept to achieve surface emission from conventional semiconductor
laser diodes. This new type of laser diode is modified to allow a coupling of the laser mode
to a transverse electric polarized surface mode. As a result we achieve surface emission
from GaAs/AlGaAs double heterostructure laser diodes with a beam divergence of 0.2%.
This novel concept has a high potential for the realization of a beam steering device. Surface
emitting laser diodes (SELs) are expected to be widely used in future optical information …