Intensity and polarization self-pulsations in VCSELs

Abstract

We implement a dynamical model that describes the polarization behavior in VCSELs containing an absorbing region surrounding the active zone. We find four regions of qualitative different behaviors: stable linearly-polarized operation, intensity pulsations of a linearly-polarized component, pulsations of both total intensity and polarization components, and polarization self-pulsations with constant total intensity. We characterize the four regions by computing the polarization resolved optical and power spectra. The predicted scenario agrees with recent experimental results.