  Microscopic many-body theory coupled to Maxwell's equation is used to
investigate dual-wavelength operation in vertical external-cavity
surface-emitting lasers. The intrinsically dynamic nature of coexisting
emission wavelengths in semiconductor lasers is associated with characteristic
non-equilibrium carrier dynamics which causes significant deformations of the
quasi-equilibrium gain and carrier inversion. Extended numerical simulations
are employed to efficiently investigate the parameter space to identify the
regime for two-wavelength operation. Using a frequency selective intracavity
etalon, two families of modes are stabilized with dynamical interchange of the
strongest emission peaks. For this operation mode, anti-correlated intensity
noise is observed in agreement with the experiment. A method using effective
frequency selective filtering is suggested for stabilization genuine
dual-wavelength output.
