Superthermal light emission and nontrivial photon statistics in small lasers

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of superthermal photon statistics in a small semiconductor microlaser's spontaneous pulsed emission, revealing complex spike dynamics that challenge traditional statistical analysis methods.

Contribution

It uncovers a new spontaneous pulsed emission regime with superthermal statistics and highlights the importance of coincidence techniques for nanolaser characterization.

Findings

Superthermal photon statistics observed in small lasers.

Spike dynamics cause discordance in statistical representations.

Coincidence techniques are essential for nanolaser light analysis.

Abstract

Photon statistical measurements on a semiconductor microlaser, obtained using single-photon counting techniques, show that a newly discovered spontaneous pulsed emission regime possesses superthermal statistical properties. The observed spike dynamics, typical of small-scale devices, is at the origin of an unexpected discordance between the probability density function and its representation in terms of the first moments, a discordance so far unnoticed in all devices. The impact of this new dynamics is potentially large, since coincidence techniques are presently the sole capable of characterizing light emitted by nanolasers.