Abstract

We investigate correlations in the evolution of the phase and amplitude of a laser during the transient after it is switched on. In particular we seek differences in these correlations for resonantly tuned lasers and for detuned lasers since the deterministic switch-on to non-resonant operating conditions involves a frequency shift as the intensity increases [1]. We consider the effect of different noise strengths but we limit our analysis to a "good cavity" condition and to third-order terms in the gain saturation. We discover a crossover from a low detuning regime, in which the initial phase diffusion in the unstable "off-state" gives the dominant contributions to the coupled phase-intensity fluctuations in the switching transients, to a large detuning regime in which the evolution of the laser frequency (driven by the evolving intensity) dominates.

© 1991 Optical Society of America