| In this dissertation, a quantum mechanical treatment of semiconductor microlasers is developed. In a microlaser, the wavelength of the laser radiation is on the order of the spatial extent of the device. This leads to new regimes of laser operation since, in a microlaser, a substantial fraction of the total spontaneous emission is seeded back into the gain medium. To date, the best realizations of microlasers are semiconductor devices in which as much as 20 percent of the total spontaneous emission feeds into the lasing cavity mode. These devices could prove useful in a variety of electro-optic applications which would benefit from devices that contain realizations with many efficient coherent light sources packed in close proximities on a single integrated circuit chip. Since spontaneous emission can form a large fraction of the total light output of a microlaser, the statistical nature of the light emitted can be significantly different than that emitted by conventional macroscopic lasers. In this dissertation, we develop a quasi Fermi-equilibrium, quantum mechanical model of microcavity semiconductor lasers which predicts the intensity noise present below, at, and above threshold in these devices. We present, for the first time, exact numerical results for the photon statistics of microcavity semiconductor lasers. The methodology used is an extension of Scully-Lamb quantum laser theory that incorporates the Fermi-Dirac statistics inherent in a semiconductor gain medium. |
