Crescent Waves in Optical Cavities

We theoretically and experimentally generate stationary crescent surface solitons pinged to the boundary of a micro-structured vertical cavity surface emission laser by using the intrinsic cavity mode as a background potential. Instead of a direct transition from linear to nonlinear cavity modes, we demonstrate the existence of a symmetry-breaking crescent waves without any analogs in the linear limit. Our results provide an alternative and general method to control lasing characteristics as well as to study optical surface waves.Comment: 3 figure

Nonlinear localized modes in bandgap microcavities

We study experimentally an electrically pumped GaAs-based bandgap structure based on a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). We demonstrate that a microcavity embedded into this bandgap VCSEL structure supports localized optical modes without any holding beam. We propose a model of surface-structured VCSELs based on a reduced dissipative wave equation for describing electromagnetic modes in such semiconductor cavities and anal yze a crossover between linear and nonlinear solitonlike cavity modes.This work was supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSCT) (projects NSC 95-2112- M-007-058-MY3, NSC 95-2120-M-001-006, and NSC 98- 2112-M-007-012) and by the Australian Research Council. It is also supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under grants 10704017 and 11074036 and by the National Fundamental Research Program of China grant 2007CB936300