The present embodiment relates to a semiconductor light emitting element having a structure that enables removal of zero-order light from output light of an S-iPM laser. The semiconductor light emitting element includes an active layer, a pair of cladding layers, and a phase modulation layer. The phase modulation layer has a base layer and a plurality of modified refractive index regions each of which is individually arranged at a specific position. One of the pair of cladding layers includes a distributed Bragg reflector layer which has a transmission characteristic with respect to a specific optical image outputted along an inclined direction with respect to a light emission surface and has a reflection characteristic with respect to the zero-order light outputted along a normal direction of the light emission surface.