Synchronization of quasiperiodic oscillations in semiconductor lasers

Oscillatory behavior is ubiquitous in nature and technology, e.g. as subthreshold oscillations or excitatory and inhibitory interactions of nerve cells. To gain insight in the mechanisms of phase synchronization of chaotic intensity pulsations in lasers, we first investigated the synchronization of quasiperiodic oscillations with two semiconductor lasers in experiment. The devices each are a single-mode distributed feedback (DFB) laser, integrated in a compound cavity with a passive phase-tuning section and an amplifier section. Similar devices have recently been proposed for the generation of high-dimensional optical chaos, used in communication schemes with enhanced privacy.