Relative intensity noise of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

Abstract
A study of the relative intensity noise (RIN) of two all semiconductor vertical cavity surface emitting lasers is presented. We find that the slope of the low frequency RIN agrees with theory for the fundamental mode only and that transverse modes introduce sharp changes in the RIN and put a limit on the minimum attainable RIN. For the fundamental mode, both devices achieve a RIN of less than −140 dB/Hz for optical powers less than 1 mW. This good performance is attributed to the high reflectivity of the cavity mirrors.