A number of issues related to pulsed-power determinations for midinfrared s
emiconductor lasers are reexamined. Especially useful is a Green's function
approach to incorporating the temporal dependence of the detector sensitiv
ity. A method for extracting the external differential efficiency when the
threshold is "soft" is also presented. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physi
cs. [S0003-6951(99)00104-7].