  We have studied the steady state and dynamic optical properties of
semiconductor microdisk lasers whose active region contains interface
fluctuation quantum dots in GaAs/(Ga,Al)As quantum wells. Steady-state
measurements of the stimulated emission via whispering gallery modes yield a
quality factor $Q \sim 5600$ and a coupling constant $\beta \sim 0.09$. The
broad gain spectrum produces mode hopping between spectrally adjacent
whispering gallery modes as a function of temperature and excitation power.
Time- and energy-resolved photoluminescence measurements show that the emission
rise and decay rates increase significantly with excitation power. Marked
differences are observed between the radiative decay rates in processed and
unprocessed samples.
