Characterisation of a cavity soliton laser based on a VCSEL with feedback from a volume Bragg grating

Cavity solitons have been demonstrated in VCSELs with feedback from a diffraction grating and display many qualities that are of interest to all-optical processing and telecommunication applications. They act like independent micro-lasers with coherent emission and narrow linewidth. They are independent and controllable, and may be switched on and off by means of external injection. They therefore act like an optical bit which may be useful in optical memory applications. The authors report on a new scheme using use a volume Bragg grating as the feedback element.