Optical pattern formation in passive semiconductor microresonators

Characterization of stationary patterns and their link with cavity solitons in semiconductor microresonators

“…In order to do that, let us consider a new transverse basis and new coordinates with respect to this basis, so that for any point in the plane described by the vector position , we have (8) No local effects are affected by a change of basis, while all coupling mechanisms are and, in particular, the representation of the Laplacian operator, associated with diffraction and diffusion, is to be properly rederived in the Fourier space for implementation both of the split-step method and of the Newton method. To do this, we define projection vectors such that and (9) and consider the action of the transverse Laplacian on an arbitrary scalar function . Defining the Fourier transform of this function through (10) then (11) To explicitly illustrate the numerical scheme, we now refer to a nonorthogonal space grid whose unit vectors form an angle of , i.e., we refer to hexagonal patterns.…”

“…A particular interest in optical self-organization and confinement has arisen from the prediction of cavity solitons [5]- [8] and the observation of patterns and localized structures [9]- [12] in semiconductor microcavities. Such results pave the way for the application of cavity solitons as individually addressable self-organized pixels, suitable for, e.g., reconfigurable arrays, shift registers, and other basic applications for information encoding and processing [3], [13].…”

Transverse dynamics in cavity nonlinear optics (2000–2003)

“…In this device, experiments have led to the observation of patterns, indications of localization of structures [245][246][247][248] and bistability [249]. Bright and dark spatial solitons are observed [250].…”

Patterns in Broad-Area Microcavities

“…[5,6]). Recent experiments resulted in the observation of spatial patterns also in driven passive cavities [7,8]. We report on an intermediate case, in which a broadarea VCSEL is operated as a regenerative amplifier, i.e.…”

“…Recent works predict the spontaneous emergence of hexagonal patterns and the possibility of bistable soliton-like excitations (cavity solitons) in such systems [9,10], which might enable new forms of all-optical, massively parallel information processing. Partly electrically pumped systems appear to be advantageous in some respects compared to purely passive systems [7,8], since cascading is easier to achieve and the requirements on optical power are considerably lower. First results were presented in [11].…”