Exploiting the Nonlinear Dynamics of Optically Injected Semiconductor Lasers for Optical Sensing

Maria Torre,Cristina Masoller

doi:10.3390/photonics6020045

Abstract

Optically injected semiconductor lasers are known to display a rich variety of dynamic behaviours, including the emission of excitable pulses, and of rare giant pulses (often referred to as optical rogue waves). Here, we use a well-known rate equation model to explore the combined effect of excitability and extreme pulse emission, for the detection of variations in the strength of the injected field. We find parameter regions where the laser always responds to a perturbation by emitting an optical pulse whose amplitude is above a pre-defined detection threshold. We characterize the sensing capability of the laser in terms of the amplitude and the duration of the perturbation.

Highlights

Complex dynamical systems often exhibit extreme or rare events
We aim to find appropriated conditions such that the decrease of the injected power triggers the emission of an optical pulse, high enough to cross a pre-defined “detection threshold”
We have numerically studied the dynamics of an optically injected laser and have shown that, under appropriated conditions, a decrease of the injected power can be detected by the emission of optical pulses that are high enough to cross a pre-defined detection threshold, and that are emitted within a pre-defined detection time interval

Summary

Introduction

Complex dynamical systems often exhibit extreme or rare events. The dynamics of continuous-wave (cw) optically injected semiconductor lasers has attracted attention, because, under appropriated conditions, the laser can emit excitable pulses [4,5], or rare giant pulses [6]. In contrast to what can be achieved in other fields, optics laser systems allow to record long datasets containing large numbers of extreme events. Such optical “big data” has been used for testing data analysis tools for extreme event prediction [9,10,11]

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