Two-mode dynamics in different semiconductor laser structures

Abstract

We review three two-mode models for different semiconductor laser structures: Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs), Twin-Stripe Semiconductor-Lasers (TSSL), and Semiconductor Ring Lasers (SRL). The VCSELs model and TSSL model display rich dynamic behavior when a saturable absorber is embedded in the cavity. VCSELs with saturable absorber showed polarization chaos, which found applications in encoded communications; TSSLs with saturable absorber show coherent locked states as well as chaotic behavior; and SRLs show a complex two-mode dynamics giving rise to bidirectional operation, alternate oscillations and spontaneous symmetry breaking toward quasi-unidirectional bistable solutions, with potential applications to all-optical switching.