Abstract
Neurons communicate by brief bursts of spikes separated by silent phases and information may be encoded into the burst duration or through the structure of the interspike intervals. Inspired by the importance of bursting activities in neuronal computation, we have investigated the bursting oscillations of an optically injected quantum dot laser. We find experimentally that the laser periodically switches between two distinct operating states with distinct optical frequencies exhibiting either fast oscillatory or nearly steady state evolutions (two-color bursting oscillations). The conditions for their emergence and their control are analyzed by systematic simulations of the laser rate equations. By projecting the bursting solution onto the bifurcation diagram of a fast subsystem, we show how a specific hysteresis phenomenon explains the transitions between active and silent phases. Since size-controlled bursts can contain more information content than single spikes our results open the way to new forms of neuron inspired optical communication.
Highlights
Neurons communicate by brief bursts of spikes separated by silent phases and information may be encoded into the burst duration or through the structure of the interspike intervals
The active phase starts at a stable steady state, experiences a long delayed transition to a branch of stable oscillations, and stops at a limit point of periodic solutions
The most natural way to control the number of spikes during a burst is by changing the position of the Hopf bifurcation point H in the Ig versus Δ bifurcation diagram
Summary
The master laser (ML) was a commercially available tunable laser with a linewidth less than 100 kHz. The evolution of the ES intensity is similar It starts at approximately zero and quickly grows (corresponding to the GS dropout) to a moderate level with damped oscillations. The ES intensity quickly drops back to approximately zero corresponding to the high intensity GS plateau These observations suggest that we have uncovered a bursting cycle alternating between a large intensity GS state (the silent phase) and a lower intensity GS state where sustained oscillations are possible (the active phase). 7, is ωH = ωR2 + εH2 where ωR denotes the relaxation oscillation frequency of the solitary laser and εH is the injection rate at the Hopf bifurcation point The latter is related to the detuning by Eq (9.52) in[7]. The C terms deterOur primary control parameter is the injection strength ε
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