Statistics of the optical intensity of a chaotic external-cavity DFB laser

We study experimentally and theoretically the first- and second-order statistics of the optical intensity of a chaotic external-cavity semiconductor DFB laser in fully developed coherence-collapse. The second-order statistic is characterized by the autocorrelation, where we achieve consistent experimental and theoretical results over the entire parameter range considered. For the first-order statistic, we find that the experimental probability-density function is significantly more concentrated around the mean optical power and robust to parameter changes than theory predicts.