Dependence of amplitude noise spectral characteristics on the spontaneous emission rate in laser diodes

The noise characteristics of semiconductor laser diodes are among the fundamental properties of the lasers and have important implications in the practical applications of laser. There have been a great deal of studies on these characteristics. Theoretical modeling has successfully explained many qualitative features of the noise characteristics, but there have not been studies showing fully consistent quantitative agreement between theory and experimental data. The authors show that the spectral shape of the overall amplitude noise depends on the strength of the spontaneous emission rate, which cannot be explained by a linearized analytical model but is quantitatively consistent with a full nonlinear model