title: Spatial coherence of broad-area laser diodes.
abstract: We model the spatial coherence of broad-area laser diodes (BALDs) by representing the mutual intensity as superpositions of individually fully coherent but mutually uncorrelated fields. Consideration of spectroscopic modal structure measurements and intensity-based mode recovery shows that the standard Mercer-type coherent-mode expansion can lead to unsatisfactory results for real BALDs. However, we show that a so-called shifted elementary-field method provides a sufficiently accurate tool for spatial coherence and propagation modeling even if the modal structure of the BALD is severely distorted.
authors.affiliation: University of Eastern Finland, Department of Physics and Mathematics, P.O. Box 111, Joensuu FI-80101, Finland. henri.partanen@uef.fi
authors.forename: Henri
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Partanen
authors.forename: Jani
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tervo
authors.forename: Jari
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Turunen