Experimental study of the turn-on statistics of class-B lasers under the influence of additive noise

The experimental results of the turn-on statistics carried out, by way of pump or loss switching, on the CO sub(2) laser were presented. The influence of the spontaneous emission noise on the transient dynamical behavior of the laser at the turn-on was analyzed. Three kinds of statistics, a) the statistics with a swept parameter, b) the statistics of the fluctuations of external parameters and c) the statistics of the fluctuations of the spontaneous emission, were compared and their relative strengths and the conditions for their observability were discussed. The physical differences between the statistics performed with a slowly swept parameter and an instantaneous switching were emphasized as well as the properties of the statistics with multiplicative versus additive noise.