Experimental Observation of Dynamic-State Switching in VCSELs With Optical Feedback

Abstract

Two new dynamic-state switching phenomena are experimentally observed in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with polarization-preserved external-cavity optical feedback. One is switching between a steady state and a quasi-periodic state, and the other is switching between two different steady states. Both switching phenomena occur in the same polarization and the switching period is equal to the round-trip time in the external feedback cavity. The evolution of the two switching phenomena is experimentally investigated in detail. This work not only enriches the understanding of laser nonlinear dynamics but also provides an all-optical alternative for generation of special signals for possible applications.

Polarization Instabilities in Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers

“…Polarization mode hopping features demonstrated for SL based VCSEL are similar to QW VCSELs in case of switching between the two orthogonal modes [8][9][10][11][12], but in contrast there is no abrupt polarization switching point -power of LP1 mode gradually decreases after passing a fixed current value. In polarization mode hopping dynamics gradual LP1 mode suppression is observed for 9.8-11 mA current region.…”

“…The research results of the dynamics of polarization switching for VCSELs based on quantum wells (QWs) for solitary VCSELs were previously analyzed in Refs. [8][9][10][11]. In Ref.…”

Dynamics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers under AM and FM current modulations

“…therein) or self-sustained oscillators [9,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. Under optical injection, several dynamics were found such as microwave generation [28], switching between two steady-states or one steady-state and quasi-periodic state [29], and inhibition of spiking dynamics under pulsed optical injection for the emulation of biological neurons [30][31][32]. Besides, it is important to note that the scope of application has been extended to neuromorphic photonics networks when numerous of these VCSELs were coupled [33].…”

Intermittent dynamical state switching in discrete-mode semiconductor lasers subject to optical feedback

“…For a long (~10 -1 m) ECF-SLs, Citrin's group experimentally demonstrated that intermittency can be generally observed independently with the initial condition [23] and found two distinct intermittency regimes on the way of dynamical evolution to chaos [24]. More recently, different from the abovementioned intermittency between multistate dynamics and coherence collapse, a regular dynamical switching between stable state and periodic states has been observed in longer (>10 m) external cavity distributed feedback (DFB) lasers [25] as well as vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) [26].…”