Effects of optical feedback on static and dynamic characteristics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Author

Law, Joanne Y. ; Agrawal, Govind P.

Author_Institution

Inst. of Opt., Rochester Univ., NY, USA

Volume

3

Issue

2

fYear

1997

fDate

4/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

353

Lastpage

358

Abstract

We present a numerical study of the effects of optical feedback on the static and dynamic characteristics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) under both single-mode and two-mode operations. Our model includes transverse effects such as carrier diffusion and spatial hole burning (SHB) and is therefore capable of including gain-saturation-induced coupling among transverse modes. For short external cavities (~30 μm), optical feedback can completely suppress higher-order transverse modes. For relatively long external cavities (~1 cm), VCSELs follow a period-doubling route to chaos. Numerical results show that multimode VCSELs exhibit self-pulsations at higher feedback levels compared with the single-mode case

Keywords

dynamics; laser cavity resonators; laser feedback; laser modes; laser theory; optical chaos; optical couplers; optical hole burning; optical saturation; semiconductor device models; surface emitting lasers; 1 cm; 30 mum; VCSELs; carrier diffusion; chaos; dynamic characteristics; gain-saturation-induced coupling; higher feedback levels; higher-order transverse mode suppression; laser feedback; multimode VCSELs; numerical study; optical feedback; period-doubling route; relatively long external cavities; self-pulsations; short external cavities; single-mode operations; static characteristics; transverse effects; transverse modes; two-mode operations; vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers; Chaos; Chaotic communication; Laser feedback; Laser modes; Laser theory; Optical feedback; Semiconductor lasers; Surface emitting lasers; Threshold current; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1077-260X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/2944.605678

Filename

605678