Measurements of intensity fluctuations of an InGaAsP external cavity laser

Abstract

We have measured the statistical distributions of intensity fluctuations in an external cavity semiconductor laser. The cavity was formed by coupling a 6.8-cm-long multimode fiber to an antireflection coated, 10-μm-wide InGaAsP ridge-waveguide laser. The fluctuations of the intensity of the laser are small when the cavity is adjusted for single-longitudinal-mode operation.