Bistability conditions between lasing and non-lasing states for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with frequency-selective optical feedback

Abstract

This paper gives analytical treatment and experimental details on on/off-bistability in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with frequency-selective feedback by a grating. In particular, the conditions for the coexistence of lasing and nonlasing states and an abrupt turn-on behaviour at threshold are derived using an envelope approximation. The theoretical and experimental results are in satisfactory agreement.