Experimental measurements of the spatial distribution of the spontaneous
emission produced inside the cavity of a 4° 980 nm tapered laser
are
presented and compared with the results of a 2.5 D half-space, hot-cavity
simulation. A custom device with a windowed n-contact was designed and
fabricated for this work. The effectiveness of this windowed contact was
investigated and appears to be satisfactory. The measurement system for
photo- and electroluminescence microscopy imaging was quantitatively
calibrated with an error of < ±15%. Good agreement between the
experimental and simulated results are presented, with an error of
~ 6%
in the carrier density at the output facet.