Nonlinear Dynamics in Semiconductor Lasers - Abstract
Sciamanna, Marc
Polarization switching, nonlinear dynamics and chaos in a Quantum Dot VCSEL Marc Sciamanna (1), Martin Virte (1,2), Hugo Thienpont (2) and Krassimir Panajotov (2) (1) OPTEL Research Group, Laboratoire Matériaux Optiques, Photonique et Systèmes (LMOPS) EA-4423, Supélec, 2 Rue Edouard Belin, F-57070 Metz, France (2) Department of Applied Physics and Photonics (IR-TONA), Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Email: marc.sciamanna@supelec.fr The physics underlying light polarization properties of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser remains an active research area [1]. Experiments on quantum well [2] and recently quantum dot VCSELs [3] have shown that the increase of injection current may lead to a transition from a linearly polarized light emission at threshold to a region of nonlinear dynamics (self-pulsing) accompanying polarization switching. However these experiments brought different conclusions on the frequency of self-pulsation: the polarization dynamics occurred on a nanosecond time-scale that related either to the birefringence induced frequency splitting or to the relaxation oscillation frequency. With the use of advanced continuation methods applied to the well- known spin-flip (SFM) model [4], we bring now new light into the bifurcations explaining deterministic self-pulsing and deterministic polarization chaos. We are then able not only to reconcile these a priori contradicting experiments and to interpret experimental results as resulting from polarization chaos. [1] M. Sciamanna, "Mode Competition Driving Laser Nonlinear Dynamics", in "Nonlinear Laser Dynamics: From Quantum Dots to Cryptography" (ed K. Lüdge), Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany. doi: 10.1002/9783527639823.ch3 [2] M. Sondermann et al., ?Experimental and theoretical investigations of elliptically polarized dynamical transition states in the polarization switching of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers,? Optics Commun., vol.235, pp.421?434, 2004. [3] L. Olejniczak et al., ?Polarization switching and polarization mode hopping in quantum dot vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers,? Opt. Express, vol.19, pp.2476?2484, 2011. [4] M. San Miguel et al., ?Light polarization dynamics in surface-emitting semiconductor lasers,? Phys. Rev. A, vol.52, pp.1728?1739, 1995.