Noise driven transients in single mode semiconductor, solid state, and molecular gas lasers after they are ‘‘switched on’’ have strong (nearly linear) correlations between the time at which the laser intensity becomes significantly different from zero and the peak intensity of the first large pulse emitted by laser. We present evidence of a clear difference in the signs of the slopes of the linear correlations for these lasers for transients resulting from gain switching and loss switching and demonstrate the physical origin for this difference.

• Received 20 December 1993

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.72.3510