Nonlinear Dynamics in Semiconductor Lasers - Abstract

Hoehne, Theresa

Validation of quasi-normal modes and of constant-flux modes for computing fundamental resonances of photonic devices

Open resonant optical devices such as oxide-confined vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) can be characterized by a quasi-normal mode (QNM) expansion. In contrast to eigenmodes of a closed system, QNMs exhibit exponentially increasing amplitudes with increasing distance from the cavity region, so the energy flux outside is not conserved [1]. Besides, the divergence renders their mathematical treatment very challenging. As an alternative approach, so-called constant-flux modes (CFM) are investigated, which have a fixed real valued frequency in the exterior domain. With this, the constant-flux modes provide for a conserved energy flux [1,2]. Our investigation focuses on the applicability of both methods for calculating the eigenfrequencies of open resonant systems and other dependent physical features. For computing the eigenvalues and eigenmodes, the time-harmonic field solutions of Maxwell’s equations are computed numerically with the finite element solver JCMsuite [3]. References 1 L. Ge, Dissertation, Yale University (2010). 2 H. E. Türeci et al., Phys. Rev. A, 74:043822, (2006). 3J. Pomplun, et al. phys. stat. sol. (b) 244, 3419 (2007).