Dissipative phase solitons in semiconductor lasers

TL;DR

This paper reports the experimental discovery and theoretical analysis of dissipative phase solitons in a strongly multimode semiconductor laser, revealing their stability, chiral properties, and the influence of symmetry breaking.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental observation of non dispersive phase solitons in semiconductor lasers and develops a theoretical framework explaining their stability and dynamics.

Findings

Only one sign of chiral charge is stable.

The phase solitons exhibit a 2π phase rotation.

The phenomena are explained by a modified Ginzburg-Landau model.

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate the existence of non dispersive solitary waves associated with a 2$\pi$ phase rotation in a strongly multimode ring semiconductor laser with coherent forcing. Similarly to Bloch domain walls, such structures host a chiral charge. The numerical simulations based on a set of effective Maxwell-Bloch equations support the experimental evidence that only one sign of chiral charge is stable, which strongly affects the motion of the phase solitons. Furthermore, the reduction of the model to a modified Ginzburg Landau equation with forcing demonstrates the generality of these phenomena and exposes the impact of the lack of parity symmetry in propagative optical systems.