Abstract
Complex phenomena in photonics, in particular, dynamical properties of semiconductor lasers due to delayed coupling, are reviewed. Although considered a nuisance for a long time, these phenomena now open interesting perspectives. Semiconductor laser systems represent excellent test beds for the study of nonlinear delay-coupled systems, which are of fundamental relevance in various areas. At the same time delay-coupled lasers provide opportunities for photonic applications. In this review an introduction into the properties of single and two delay-coupled lasers is followed by an extension to network motifs and small networks. A particular emphasis is put on emerging complex behavior, deterministic chaos, synchronization phenomena, and application of these properties that range from encrypted communication and fast random bit sequence generators to bioinspired information processing.
Highlights
Semiconductor lasers exhibit a particular nonlinearity in the interaction of the light with the active medium, which distinguishes them from all other lasers
We focus on some dynamical features, representing complex behavior in semiconductor lasers with delayed optical feedback
III.D, a way to achieve stable identical synchronization between two delay-coupled oscillators is to implement common driving by a third chaotic laser. The feasibility of this approach in mutually coupled semiconductor lasers was explored via numerical simulations by Jiang et al (2010), in which successful simultaneous message transmission was demonstrated with a bit rate higher than 10 Gb=s
Summary
The invention of semiconductor lasers, with the demonstration of lasing from semiconductor homojunctions in 1962, took place just two years after the demonstration of the first laser of any kind. Hundreds of millions of semiconductor lasers are every year being grown and built into a variety of systems They are employed in optical storage systems, communication systems (ranging from short-distance data communication systems to long-haul fiber-optic networks), as pump sources, for material processing, and in many more applications; see, e.g., Agrawal (2010) and Bachmann, Loosen, and Poprawe (2010). We describe how, during the past decade, the potential of delay-coupled semiconductor lasers and their complex emission properties have been discovered for conventional and novel applications, ranging from encrypted communication, sensing applications, and complex networks to photonic information processing These developments could contribute to the consolidation of a field we name complex photonics. Complex photonics does not refer to how complicated and extended the technical implementations are
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