Patent ID: 7801198

Claim:
A surface emitting laser element comprising: an active layer; and at least one dielectric multilayer mirror formed of a structure including repetition of pairs of dielectric layers, dielectric layers in each pair of the pairs of dielectric layers comprising layers of different dielectric materials and having different refractive indices for reflecting a light generated in the active layer, wherein at least one of boundaries between the dielectric layers is formed to have a predetermined surface roughness to obtain a desired target reflectance of the dielectric multilayer mirror, the dielectric multilayer mirror is employed as at least one of an upper mirror or a lower mirror of the surface emitting laser element, and the desired target reflectance has a value between reflectances calculated from the structure including repetition of pairs of dielectric layers having inherent reflectances wherein the surface roughness is decided based on the target reflectance, number of dielectric layers, and optical constants of the dielectric layers, the surface roughness is 0.5 nanometer to 2.0 nanometers represented by root-mean-squared roughness.