"Febrile" reaction of electrons in a semiconductor laser to an ultrashort light pulse

It is shown that electrons in a semiconductor laser react to an ultrashort light pulse by fast heating–cooling or cooling–heating pulses so that the electron temperature becomes different from the lattice temperature. Such a reaction creates equally fast pulsations of the laser gain, which are comparable in amplitude with the contribution due to variations of the electron density. This effect can play a significant role in the fast nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor lasers.