Turn-on jitter of zero-biased nearly single-mode VCSEL's

The turn-on jitter of zero-biased nearly single-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL's) is experimentally investigated. Since during the turn-on event both the dominant and the suppressed polarization are exited, an analytical expression describing the probability density function of the turn-on delay for a single-mode VCSEL is derived, which accounts for both polarizations. The measurement results and the theory are in good agreement as long as the VCSEL is transversal single-mode.