STATISTICS OF POWER-DROPOUT EVENTS IN SEMICONDUCTOR-LASERS WITH TIME-DELAYED OPTICAL FEEDBACK

We measure experimentally the statistical distribution of time interva ls between power-dropout events occurring in a semiconductor laser wit h time-delayed optical feedback operating in the low-frequency fluctua tion regime. Near the laser threshold, the time-interval probability d istribution displays a low-probability region, or dead zone, for short times, followed by a slow rise, and an exponential decay for long tim es. At higher injection currents, the distributions develop considerab le structure. We compare our results to the predictions of approximate analytic models of the laser dynamics and find that no single model a ccurately captures the details of the observed distributions, indicati ng that our physical understanding of the long-term dynamics of the la ser in this regime is less than complete. [S1050-2947(97)50711-6].