Experimental study of polarization switching of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers as a dynamical bifurcation

Abstract

We study the role of the bias current sweep rate in measurements of polarization switching (PS) of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). We show that the polarization-resolved L-I (light-intensity) curve depends on the current sweep rate. As the current sweep rate increases, the PS occurs at higher bias currents for upward scans and at lower bias currents for downward scans. We also show that the delay of the dynamical bifurcation follows a power law relationship with the frequency of the ramp, in good agreement with recent theoretical predictions.

Polarization Dynamics of Current-Modulated Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers

“…The discrepancy arises due to the fact that when the injection current increases in time (in Fig. 1 it grows from 0.8 to 1.8 in 200 ns) the PS does not take place at the "static" bifurcation point (defined for constant in time) but occurs at a higher value, as was discussed in detail in [38], [39].…”

“…This type of PS, that is from the low frequency (high modal gain) to the high frequency (low modal gain) polarization, has been referred to in the literature as type II [12], and has been explained, in the context of the SFM model, in terms of the interplay of birefringence, saturable dispersion, and spin-flip processes [4]. The particular value of injection current at which the PS occurs depends on the diffusion coefficient [37] and on the injection current sweep rate [38], [39]. Fig.…”

Chaos dynamics in vertical-cavity surface-emitting semiconductor lasers with polarization-selected optical feedback

“…Polarization instabilities in VCSELs are detrimental for polarizationsensitive laser applications. However, the study of the dynamics is still underway and several efforts have been made to understand the origins and mechanisms of polarization dependent characteristics in VCSELs [1][2][3][4].…”

Impact of optical feedback on current-induced polarization behavior of 1550 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

“…These phenomena have been widely investigated in edge-emitting SL devices including Fabry-Perot [2] and distributed-feedback [3] SLs. Recently, special attention has turned to the nonlinear switching and bistability in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] due to their unique advantages, such as low threshold current, low cost, singlelongitudinal-mode operation, circular output-beam profile, on-wafer testing, and dense packing capability [12,13]. In particular, polarization switching (PS), which indicates that the output polarization state of a VCSEL is transferred suddenly from one polarization mode to the other orthogonal polarization mode, has seen an increasing amount of attention [6][7][8][9][10][11].…”