Independently-addressable high power surface-emitting laser array with tight-pitch packing

A semiconductor surface-emitting laser array, comprising:

• a plurality of independently addressable pixels arranged in a linear array on a common substrate chip and including a dedicated channel associated with an address trace line for each pixel;
• at least one laser aperture associated with each independently addressable pixel, wherein each of the at least one aperture further comprises a non-symmetric aperture shape configured to fit within a pitch of each address trace line associated with each channel for each of the plurality of independently addressable pixels;
• and
• an electrical contact pad associated with each address trace line for each independently addressable pixel, wherein each electrical contact pad is configured to accept wire bonding;
• wherein the plurality of independently addressable pixels are arranged along at least two rows with one set of address lines coming in from a top of the common substrate chip and are connecting to a first row of independently addressable pixels and another set of address lines coming in from the bottom of the common substrate chip and are connected to a second row of independently addressable pixels.