Abstract
Recent works [Chong et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 053901 (2010); Wan et al., Science 331, 889 (2011)] have shown that the time-reversed process of lasing at threshold realizes a coherent perfect absorber (CPA). In a CPA, a lossy medium in an optical cavity with a specific degree of dissipation, equal in modulus to the gain of the lasing medium, can perfectly absorb coherent optical waves at discrete frequencies that are the time-reversed counterpart of the lasing modes. Here the concepts of time reversal of lasing and CPA are extended for optical radiation emitted by a laser operated in an arbitrary regime, i.e., for transient, chaotic, or periodic coherent optical fields. We prove that any electromagnetic signal $E(t)$ generated by a laser system $S$ operated in an arbitrary regime can be perfectly absorbed by a CPA device ${S}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ which is simply realized by placing inside $S$ a broadband linear absorber (attenuator) of appropriate transmittance. As examples, we discuss CPA devices that perfectly absorb a chaotic laser signal and a frequency-modulated optical wave.
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