Onset of lasing in small devices: the identification of the first threshold

We present a simple and flexible technique for identifying the onset of coherent emission in lasers, from the mesoscale to the nanoscale, which makes use of photon counting and a small amplitude modulation added to the pump. The optimal modulation frequency is obtained from the radiofrequency power spectrum of the unperturbed laser emission. The identification of the lasing onset rests on the appearence of a resonance in the response of the zero-order autocorrelation function ($g^{(2)}(0)$) plotted as a function of the pump rate. The intrinsic simplicity of this technique and its use of photon counting make it an excellent tool for certifying the onset of laser emission in nanoscale sources.