AbstractIn order to analyze the beam quality of laser sources wavefront measurements using a Shack–Hartmann sensor became an established way. With the detection of the wavefront deflection a change of the modal composition of the laser beam can be recorded directly. While this method is well known for nearly Gaussian laser beams, the wavefront analysis of broadarea semiconductor lasers is an open field of current research. Detailed analysis of the wavefront gives an additional path to get an insight into the transverse modal composition of semiconductor lasers, which have a dominant impact on the output parameters of the devices. For the presented investigations lasers emitting light in the near infrared (
