Low saturation fluence in a semiconductor saturable electroabsorber mirror operated in a self-biased regime

A semiconductor saturable absorber mirror utilizing the electroabsorption effect on a self-biased stack of extremely shallow quantum wells is proposed and analyzed theoretically and numerically. The saturation flux and recovery time of the proposed device when operated with picosecond incident pulses are shown to compare very favorably with existing all-optical constructions. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics

Introduction: Localized Structures in Dissipative Media: From Optics to Plant Ecology

Localised structures in dissipative appears in various fields of natural science such as biology, chemistry, plant ecology, optics and laser physics. The proposed theme issue is to gather specialists from various fields of non-linear science toward a cross-fertilisation among active areas of research. This is a cross-disciplinary area of research dominated by the nonlinear optics due to potential applications for all-optical control of light, optical storage, and information processing. This theme issue contains contributions from 18 active groups involved in localized structures field and have all made significant contributions in recent years.Comment: 14 pages, 0 figure, submitted to Phi. Trasaction Royal Societ

Delayed feedback control of self-mobile cavity solitons

Control of the motion of cavity solitons is one the central problems in nonlinear optical pattern formation. We report on the impact of the phase of the time-delayed optical feedback and carrier lifetime on the self-mobility of localized structures of light in broad area semiconductor cavities. We show both analytically and numerically that the feedback phase strongly affects the drift instability threshold as well as the velocity of cavity soliton motion above this threshold. In addition we demonstrate that non-instantaneous carrier response in the semiconductor medium is responsible for the increase in critical feedback rate corresponding to the drift instability

Cavity solitons in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We investigate a control of the motion of localized structures of light by means of delay feedback in the transverse section of a broad area nonlinear optical system. The delayed feedback is found to induce a spontaneous motion of a solitary localized structure that is stationary and stable in the absence of feedback. We focus our analysis on an experimentally relevant system namely the Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL). In the absence of the delay feedback we present experimental evidence of stationary localized structures in a 80 $\mu$m aperture VCSEL. The spontaneous formation of localized structures takes place above the lasing threshold and under optical injection. Then, we consider the effect of the time-delayed optical feedback and investigate analytically the role of the phase of the feedback and the carrier lifetime on the self-mobility properties of the localized structures. We show that these two parameters affect strongly the space time dynamics of two-dimensional localized structures. We derive an analytical formula for the threshold associated with drift instability of localized structures and a normal form equation describing the slow time evolution of the speed of the moving structure.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Vectorial dark dissipative solitons in Kerr resonators

We report the existence of vectorial dark dissipative solitons in optical cavities subject to a coherently injected beam. We assume that the resonator is operating in a normal dispersion regime far from any modulational instability. We show that the vectorial front locking mechanism allows for the stabilisation of dark dissipative structures. These structures differ by their temporal duration and their state of polarization. We characterize them by constructing their heteroclinic snaking bifurcation diagram showing evidence of multistability within a finite range of the control parameter.Comment: \copyright 2021 Optical Society of America. Users may use, reuse, and build upon the article, or use the article for text or data mining, so long as such uses are for non-commercial purposes and appropriate attribution is maintained. All other rights are reserve

Delay feedback induces a spontaneous motion of two-dimensional cavity solitons in driven semiconductor microcavities

We consider a broad area vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) operating below the lasing threshold and subject to optical injection and time-delayed feedback. We derive a generalized delayed Swift-Hohenberg equation for the VCSEL system, which is valid close to the nascent optical bistability. We first characterize the stationary-cavity solitons by constructing their snaking bifurcation diagram and by showing clustering behavior within the pinning region of parameters. Then, we show that the delayed feedback induces a spontaneous motion of two-dimensional (2D) cavity solitons in an arbitrary direction in the transverse plane. We characterize moving cavity solitons by estimating their threshold and calculating their velocity. Numerical 2D solutions of the governing semiconductor laser equations are in close agreement with those obtained from the delayed generalized Swift-Hohenberg equation

Theoretical and experimental study of polarization switching in longwavelength VCSELs subject to parallel optical injection

We report a theoretical and experimental analysis of the polarization switching found in a single-transverse mode VCSEL when subject to parallel optical injection. We have found a novel situation in which injection locking of the parallel polarization and excitation of the free-running orthogonal polarization of the VCSEL are simultaneously obtained. Analytical expressions for the power of both linear polarizations in the previous steady state are determined. We show that considering two linear polarization modes in a model of a VCSEL subject to parallel optical injection leads to simpler expressions than those found for a VCSEL with only a single linear polarization. We show that the power emitted in both linear polarizations depend linearly on the injected power. The stability region of this solution is measured in the plane injected power versus frequency detuning.This work has been funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain under project TEC2015-65212-C3-1-P and cofinanced by FEDER funds

Vector cavity solitons in broad area Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting lasers

We report the experimental observation of two-dimensional vector cavity solitons in a Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) under linearly polarized optical injection when varying optical injection linear polarization direction. The polarization of the cavity soliton is not the one of the optical injection as it acquires a distinct ellipticity. These experimental results are qualitatively reproduced by the spin-flip VCSEL model. Our findings open the road to polarization multiplexing when using cavity solitons in broad-area lasers as pixels in information technology

Deterministic polarization chaos from a laser diode

Fifty years after the invention of the laser diode and fourty years after the report of the butterfly effect - i.e. the unpredictability of deterministic chaos, it is said that a laser diode behaves like a damped nonlinear oscillator. Hence no chaos can be generated unless with additional forcing or parameter modulation. Here we report the first counter-example of a free-running laser diode generating chaos. The underlying physics is a nonlinear coupling between two elliptically polarized modes in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser. We identify chaos in experimental time-series and show theoretically the bifurcations leading to single- and double-scroll attractors with characteristics similar to Lorenz chaos. The reported polarization chaos resembles at first sight a noise-driven mode hopping but shows opposite statistical properties. Our findings open up new research areas that combine the high speed performances of microcavity lasers with controllable and integrated sources of optical chaos.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure