Dissipative Light Bullets in Passively Mode-Locked Semiconductor Lasers

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of stable three-dimensional dissipative light bullets in passively mode-locked semiconductor lasers, offering potential for 3D optical data storage and advancing understanding of complex localized structures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical framework for stable 3D dissipative light bullets in semiconductor lasers, connecting their formation to morphogenesis of auto-solitons and cellular patterns.

Findings

Stable 3D dissipative light bullets demonstrated

Effective multiple time-scale analysis developed

Potential application in 3D optical information storage

Abstract

We demonstrate the existence of stable three dimensional dissipative localized structures in the output of a laser coupled to a distant saturable absorber. These phase invariant light bullets are individually addressable and can be envisioned for three dimensional optical information storage. An effective theory provides for an intuitive picture and allows to relate their formation to the morphogenesis of static auto-solitons and cellular patterns. The complexity incurred by the widely different time scales present in the problem as well as by non-local couplings that stem from the material degrees of freedom is circumvented by the use of a multiple time-scale analysis. This provides a powerful model enabling to tackle effectively the three dimensional case.