Spatio-temporal extreme events in a laser with a saturable absorber

TL;DR

This paper investigates rare, high-intensity events in a broad-area semiconductor laser with a saturable absorber, analyzing their spatial-temporal characteristics and relation to cavity solitons.

Contribution

It identifies parameter regions prone to extreme events and explores their connection with stationary and self-pulsing cavity solitons.

Findings

Extreme events are more likely in specific parameter regions.

Extreme events are linked to cavity solitons, both stationary and self-pulsing.

Statistical analysis of maxima in the 3D space reveals key insights.

Abstract

We study extreme events occurring in the transverse $(x,y)$ section of the field emitted by a broad-area semiconductor laser with a saturable absorber. The spatio-temporal events on which we perform the statistical analysis are identified as maxima of the field intensity in the 3D space $(x,y,t)$. We identify regions in the parameter space where extreme events are more likely to occur and we study the connection of those extreme events with the cavity solitons that are known to exist in the same system, both stationary and self-pulsing.