Patent ID: 7873090

Claim:
A surface emitting laser, comprising three or more light-emitting portions for emitting laser light in different linearly polarized light directions, the light-emitting portions being formed on a substrate and located close to each other, wherein the light-emitting portions, include respective metal opening arrays each including a metal layer and provided at a light-emitting surface of the light-emitting portion, the metal layer includes a plurality of openings arranged at regular intervals and each having a diameter equal to or smaller than an oscillation wavelength of the laser light, the openings are arranged to form a rectangular lattice having two different lattice pitches P 1 and P 2 , the lattice direction of the rectangular lattice differs among the metal opening arrays, polarized light directions of light beams emitted from the respective light-emitting portions are respectively 0° or more and less than 180° and coincides with a direction of P 1 , P 1 is smaller than P 2 , P 1 satisfies a relationship: 0.9× P 1≦λ×( i 2 +j 2 ) 1/2 /(∈ 1 ∈ 2 /(∈ 1 +∈ 2 )) 1/2 ≦1.1 ×P 1, and P 2 does not satisfy a relationship: 0.9 ×P 2≦λ×( i 2 +j 2 ) 1/2 /(∈ 1 ∈ 2 /(∈ 1 +∈ 2 )) 1/2 ≦1.1 ×P 2 where ∈ 1 is a dielectric constant of the metal layer, ∈ 2 is a dielectric constant of a medium in contact with one of an upper surface and a lower surface of the metal layer, λ is an oscillation wavelength of the laser light, and i and j are integers which are not negative.