Fluctuations of the stored energy and the emitted power of a semiconductor laser are derived by classical corpuscular optical theory. The fundamental noise sources are the shot noise associated with a field's conversion to emitting or absorbing atoms and the mirror loss noise. The latter is taken into account in the form of partition noise forces linked to laser facet reflection. The theory permits the description of the nonclassical states of light, and its results agree with quantum theory.

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... r quiet pumping conditions and for a high-reflection coated Fabry-Perot laser, 50% of internal photon noise suppression is obtained, whereas nonfluctuating optical output is possible for negligible internal loss. The influence of gain suppression on amplitude squeezing is discussed. The effect of attenuation on the propagation of laser fluctuations is studied by use of the concept of optical partition noise. This leads to the invariance of a suitably defined relative intensity noise, which becomes negative for sub-Poissonian photon statistics. The setup for the intensity noise measurement with the balanced detection technique is analyzed by use of optical partition noise. © 1997 Optical Society of America [S0740-3224(97)02702-1] 250