Ultrashort Pulse Generation in Nanolasers by Means of Lorenz–Haken Instabilities

Abstract

AbstractNearly half a century ago, the German physicist Hermann Haken proved that the laser dynamics could be described, under certain conditions, by the Lorenz equations, the paradigm of deterministic chaos. Unfortunately, its experimental realization has remained elusive for conventional laser materials and cavities mostly due to the extreme pumping conditions and the low cavity quality factors (“bad‐cavity condition”) required to achieve Lorenz–Haken (L‐H) self‐pulsing dynamics upon continuous wave excitation. In this paper, it is theoretically proved that dielectric and plasmonic nanolasers, that can naturally fulfill the bad‐cavity condition, may overcome the limitations of macroscopic cavities and make the observation of L‐H instabilities in visible‐IR solid‐state materials become a reality. Remarkably, the adequate choice of active material and cavity design enables the generation of trains of ultrashort pulses in the sub‐ps regime and with MHz–GHz repetition rates without the need of resorting to neither mode‐locking nor Q‐switching techniques. Thus, the results reported in this manuscript unveil a new paradigm in the generation of ultrashort pulses at the nanoscale.