  When laser diodes are driven by high-impedance electrical sources the
variance of the number of photo-detection events counted over large time
durations is less than the average number of events (sub-Poissonian light). The
paper presents a Monte Carlo simulation that keeps track of each level
occupancy (0 or 1) in the conduction and valence bands, and of the number of
light quanta in the optical cavity. When there is good electron-lattice thermal
contact the electron and hole temperatures remain equal to that of the lattice.
In that case, elementary laser-diode noise theory results are accurately
reproduced by the simulation. But when the thermal contact is poor (or, almost
equivalently, at high power levels) new effects occur (spectral-hole burning,
temperature fluctuations, statistical fluctuations of the optical gain) that
are difficult to handle theoretically. Our numerical simulation shows that the
frequency domain over which the photo-current spectral density is below the
shot-noise level becomes narrower as the optical power increases.
