AbstractResults are presented of a study of light–current characteristics and far-field patterns of emission of stripe lasers with coupled planar waveguides. This configuration makes it possible to suppress the generation of excited modes and to have a small (about 0.9 μm) depth of the active region from the surface of the laser crystal. A high-temperature stability of the angular emission divergence (34.0° ± 1.5°) in the temperature range 20–80°C is demonstrated. The largest value of the output power is limited to 12.2 W in the continuous-wave mode by the catastrophic mirror damage.