Cavity solitons in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

• Published in: arXiv.org 2014-08
• Main Authors: Vladimirov, A G, Pimenov, A, Gurevich, S V, Panajotov, K, Averlant, E, Tlidi, M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Apertures; Carrier lifetime; Delay; Dynamic structural analysis; Electrons; Optical feedback; Parameter estimation; Plasma; Solitary waves; Stability analysis; Structural stability; Two dimensional analysis; Vertical cavity surface emission lasers
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1408.4667

We investigate a control of the motion of localized structures of light by means of delay feedback in the transverse section of a broad area nonlinear optical system. The delayed feedback is found to induce a spontaneous motion of a solitary localized structure that is stationary and stable in the absence of feedback. We focus our analysis on an experimentally relevant system namely the Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL). In the absence of the delay feedback we present experimental evidence of stationary localized structures in a 80 \(\mu\)m aperture VCSEL. The spontaneous formation of localized structures takes place above the lasing threshold and under optical injection. Then, we consider the effect of the time-delayed optical feedback and investigate analytically the role of the phase of the feedback and the carrier lifetime on the self-mobility properties of the localized structures. We show that these two parameters affect strongly the space time dynamics of two-dimensional localized structures. We derive an analytical formula for the threshold associated with drift instability of localized structures and a normal form equation describing the slow time evolution of the speed of the moving structure.