The beam quality and deflection angle of vertical cavity surface emitting laser arrays dependent on element number, separation and relative phase difference were analyzed via numerical modeling analysis. According to simulated results, the divergence angle of the array varies inversely with the number of array elements. The smaller the element separation, the smaller the intensity of side lobes. The larger the phase difference between the elements, the larger the deflection angle. Therefore, it is necessary to decrease element separation, increase array scale and increase phase difference between elements for designing the coherent vertical cavity surface emitting laser arrays. In addition, 3-element vertical cavity surface emitting laser arrays were designed and fabricated. Two-dimensional beam steering was achieved successfully via separate contacts which can control current injection into each element to control phase difference between elements.