A surface light-emitting element having improved external light emission efficiency and a self-scanning light-emitting device using this surface light-emitting element are provided. To improve external light-emission efficiency, the light-emitting center is shifted to an area where there is no light shielding layer thereon. To achieve this, an insulating layer (47) is provided on the electrode portion above which there is a light-shielding layer at a portion making contact with the semiconductor layer thereunder so as to prevent the injected current from flowing from that electrode portion. To increase the amount of light emission, the peripheral length of the electrode is increased. With an electrode of the same area, the larger the peripheral length, the larger becomes the amount of light emission because the current injected from the electrode is distributed evenly over the entire surface, causing light to emit evenly. When the surface light-emitting element is a surface light-emitting thyristor of the PNPN structure, it is necessary to have such a construction that part of the injected current is prevented from flowing toward the gate electrode (41) to improve external light emission efficiency. The self-scanning light-emitting device of this invention is accomplished by using this type of surface light-emitting element.