Patent 7453914 was granted and assigned to Seiko Epson on November, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An optical element includes a surface-emitting type semiconductor laser, and a light-receiving element that detects a part of laser light emitted from the surface-emitting type semiconductor laser, wherein the light-receiving element is formed above the surface-emitting type semiconductor laser and includes a semiconductor layer having one or more layers, and at least one of the layers in the semiconductor layer has a plane configuration that has anisotropy.