The formation of localised structures from the turn on transient of a long laser

Abstract

This paper aims to characterise, both experimentally and theoretically, the dynamics which occur during the turn on transient of a long cavity semiconductor laser. The laser comprised of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA), centered around 1300nm, a tuneable narrow bandwidth filter, for wavelength selectivity, a polarisation controller, an output coupler and multiple single mode fibre isolators to ensure the unidirectional propagation of light within the ring cavity. The bias current driven to the SOA was periodically switched on and off in order to examine the laser dynamics within each cavity round trip. It is observed that the laser intensity builds up in a step-wise manner, with each step corresponding to one cavity round trip. By examining the space-time diagrams of the lasers intensity during the turn on, it is seen that the laser will initially randomly oscillate before transitioning into a semi-stationary state. After a certain amount of round trips the laser may develop one or more localised structures, characterised by their short and fast drops of intensity. In this paper we also aim to not only explain the formation of these localised structures but also expand on their development by examining the phase evolution of their electric field.