Nonlinear dynamics of solitary and optically injected two-element laser arrays with four different waveguide structures: a numerical study

Optical noise characteristics of injection-locked epitaxial quantum dot lasers on silicon

This work theoretically investigates the relative intensity noise (RIN) and spectral linewidth characteristics of epitaxial quantum dot (QD) lasers on silicon subject to optical injection. The results show that the RIN of QD lasers can be reduced by optical injection, hence a reduction of 10 dB is achieved which leads to a RIN as low as -167.5 dB/Hz in the stable injection-locked area. Furthermore, the spectral linewidth of the QD laser can be greatly improved through the optical injection locked scheme. It is reduced from 556.5 kHz to 9 kHz with injection ratio of -60 dB and can be further reduced down to 1.5 Hz with injection ratio of 0 dB. This work provides an effective method for designing low intensity noise and ultra-narrow linewidth QD laser sources for photonics integrated circuits on silicon.

Wideband and high-dimensional chaos generation using optically pumped spin-VCSELs

We propose and numerically demonstrate wideband and high-dimensional chaos signal generation based on optically pumped spin-polarized vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (spin-VCSELs). Here, we focus on the chaotic characteristics of spin-VCSELs under two scenarios: one is a spin-VCSEL with optical feedback and the other is optical heterodyning the outputs of two free-running spin-VCSELs. Specifically, we systematically investigate the influence of some key parameters on the chaotic properties, i.e., bandwidth, spectral flatness (SF), time delay signature (TDS), correlation dimension (CD), and permutation entropy (PE), and reveal the route to enhance these properties simultaneously. Our simulation results demonstrate for the first time that spin-VCSELs with simple auxiliary configurations allow for chaos generation with desired properties, including effective bandwidth up to 30 GHz and above, no TDS of greater than 0.2, the flatness of 0.75 and above, and the high complexity/dimensionality over a wide range of parameters under both schemes. Therefore, our study may pave the way for potential applications requiring wideband and high-dimensional chaos.

Extreme events in two laterally-coupled semiconductor lasers

Rogue waves (RWs) are extreme and rare waves that emerge unexpectedly in many natural systems and their formation mechanism and prediction have been extensively studied. Here, we numerically demonstrate the appearance of extreme events (EEs) for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, in the chaotic regimes of a two-element coupled semiconductor laser array. Based on coupled-mode theory, we characterize the occurrence of EEs by calculating the probability distribution, which confirms the RW-type feature of the intensity pulses, i.e., non-Gaussian distribution. Combining with the results of the 0-1 test for chaos, we confirm that EEs originate from deterministic nonlinearities in coupled semiconductor laser systems. We show that EEs can be predicted with a long anticipation time. Furthermore, simulation results manifest that the occurrence probability of EEs can be flexibly tuned by tailoring the coupling parameter space. With the help of two-dimension maps, the effects of key parameters, i.e., the waveguide structure and the pump level, on the formation of EEs are discussed systematically. This work provides a new platform for the research of EEs in a highly integrated structure and opens up a novel investigation field for coupled semiconductor laser arrays.

Stability Boundaries in Laterally-Coupled Pairs of Semiconductor Lasers

The dynamic behaviour of coupled pairs of semiconductor lasers is studied using normal-mode theory, applied to one-dimensional (slab) and two-dimensional (circular cylindrical) real index confined structures. It is shown that regions of stable behaviour depend not only on pumping rate and laser separation, but also on the degree of guidance in the structures. Comparison of results between normal-mode and coupled-mode theories for these structures leads to the tentative conclusion that the accuracy of the latter is determined by the strength of self-overlap and cross-overlap of the symmetric and antisymmetric normal modes in the two lasers.

Efficient optoelectronic reservoir computing with three-route input based on optical delay lines

In the reservoir computing (RC) system based on delay line structure, the dynamical reservoir has short-term memory capability and can map instantaneous time signals to a high-dimensional space, so that it can effectively classify and recognize complicated time signals. A new RC system is proposed in this paper, where three-way signals are simultaneously input into the dynamical reservoir, and simultaneously processed and classified. Therefore, the information processing speed of the RC system is promoted manyfold. The reservoir is composed of a semiconductor laser and two optical feedback loops, in which two input signals are injected into two optical feedback loops, and another input signal is added to the driving current of the semiconductor laser. The computation efficiency of the RC system is validated by two tasks of the optical packet header recognition and digital speech recognition. By optimizing the parameters, the multi-input RC system can simultaneously recognize three-way 3-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit optical packet headers with the optimal word error rate (WER) of 0%, and recognize three-way digital speech signals with the optimal WER of 0.2%. It is proven that this multi-input system outperforms the single-inputting RC system based on delay line structure.

High-frequency dynamics of evanescently-coupled nanowire lasers

We analyse the dynamics and conditions for stability in an array of two laterally-coupled nanowire lasers in terms of their separation, difference in resonant frequencies and pumping rate under conditions of weak coupling. We find that the regions of stability are very small and are found close to zero frequency offset between the lasers. Outside these regions various forms of instability including periodic oscillation, chaos and complex dynamics are predicted. Importantly, the analysis of the frequency of periodic oscillations for realistic laser separations and pumping yields values of order 100 GHz thus underlining the significant potential of nanowire laser arrays for ultra-high frequency on-chip systems with very low foot-print and energy requirements.

Analysis of high-frequency oscillations in mutually-coupled nano-lasers

The dynamics of mutually coupled nano-lasers has been analyzed using rate equations which include the Purcell cavity-enhanced spontaneous emission factor F and the spontaneous emission coupling factor β. It is shown that in the mutually-coupled system, small-amplitude oscillations with frequencies of order 100 GHz are generated and are maintained with remarkable stability. The appearance of such high-frequency oscillations is associated with the effective reduction of the carrier lifetime for larger values of the Purcell factor, F, and spontaneous coupling factor, β. In mutually-coupled nano-lasers the oscillation frequency changes linearly with the frequency detuning between the lasers. For non-identical bias currents, the oscillation frequency of mutually-coupled nano-lasers also increases with bias current. The stability of the oscillations which appear in mutually coupled nano-lasers offers opportunities for their practical applications and notably in photonic integrated circuits.