Vertical external-cavity surface-emitting lasers are ideal testbeds for studying the influence of the non-equilibrium many-body dynamics on mode locking. As we will show in this thesis, ultra short pulse generation involves a marked departure from Fermi carrier distributions assumed in prior theoretical studies. A quantitative model of the mode locking dynamics is presented, where the semiconductor Bloch equations with Maxwell’s equation are coupled, in order to study the influences of quantum well carrier scattering on mode locking dynamics. This is the first work where the full model is solved without adiabatically eliminating the microscopic polarizations. In many instances we find that higher order correlation contributions (e.g. polarization dephasing, carrier scattering, and screening) can be represented by rate models, with the effective rates extracted at the level of second Born-Markov approximations. In other circumstances, such as continuous wave multi-wavelength lasing, we are forced to fully include these higher correlation terms. In this thesis we identify the key contributors that control mode locking dynamics, the stability of single pulse mode-locking, and the influence of higher order correlation in sustaining multi-wavelength continuous wave operation.