Non-paraxial contributions to the far-field pattern of surface-emitting lasers: a manifestation of the momentum-space wavefunctions of quantum billiards

We investigated experimentally non-paraxial contributions to the high-order far-field pattern of large-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers in order to explore by analogy the momentum-space wave distributions of quantum billiards. Our results reveal that non-paraxial contributions significantly influence the morphology of the high-order far-field pattern. A fast reliable method is developed for transforming the experimental far-field patterns to the correct Fourier transform of the corresponding near-field lasing modes. In this way we visualize the momentum-space (p–q) wavefunctions of quantum billiards