Electrical and optical low frequency noises in multimodal vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

Experimental investigations of the low frequency noise of multimode 780 nm vertical cavity surface emitting lasers are reported. Electrical noise, optical noise and their correlation have been measured in the frequency range 1 Hz–95 kHz. The results show that the main contribution to the electrical noise is located in the distributed Bragg reflector layers of the laser. The optical power and pump current noise sources are strongly correlated below and around the threshold, while are weakly correlated above threshold. It is argued that the noise in the optical power is due to both free injection carrier noise and optical gain fluctuations.