Extreme intensity pulses in a semiconductor laser with a short external cavity

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates extreme intensity pulses in a semiconductor laser with a short external cavity, revealing bifurcation scenarios, noise effects, and robustness of extreme events.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed bifurcation analysis of extreme pulses in short-cavity semiconductor lasers, highlighting their emergence, noise influence, and stability.

Findings

Extreme pulses occur under specific parameters.

Bifurcation scenarios lead to extreme events.

Extreme pulses are robust against noise.

Abstract

We present a numerical study of the pulses displayed by a semiconductor laser with optical feedback in the short cavity regime, such that the external cavity round trip time is smaller than the laser relaxation oscillation period. For certain parameters there are occasional pulses, which are high enough to be considered extreme events. We characterize the bifurcation scenario that gives rise to such extreme pulses and study the influence of noise. We demonstrate intermittency when the extreme pulses appear and hysteresis when the attractor that sustains these pulses is destroyed. We also show that this scenario is robust under the inclusion of noise.