The LANER: optical networks as complex lasers

TL;DR

The paper introduces the LANER, a novel optical network system that acts as a complex laser, demonstrating laser behavior through experimental fiber networks and providing a theoretical framework linking it to quantum chaos and graph theory.

Contribution

It presents the design, experimental realization, and theoretical analysis of the LANER, a new type of laser system based on complex optical networks, expanding the understanding of laser cavities and quantum chaos.

Findings

LANER exhibits standard laser emission with complex spectra.

The system can be mapped to directed graphs and quantum chaos models.

Experimental spectra agree with theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We discuss the main features of a new optical system capable of laser action: the active complex optical network, or lasing network (LANER). The system is experimentally realized with optical fibers linked each other with suitable optical couplers and with one or more coherent optical amplifying sections. The LANER displays a standard laser behavior: when the gain provided by the active sections is high enough to overcome the losses a coherent emission is produced, with a complicated intensity spectrum reflecting the structure of the network. A simple linear theoretical description is introduced and discussed, showing how the LANER can be considered as a generalization of the laser for a complicated cavity represented by the network itself. The system can be mapped to directed graphs and permits to disclosure the analogies with the problem of quantum chaos on graphs. In the case the links are all integer multiples of the same length, it is shown that the LANER framework corresponds to a lattice problem, with the equivalence of the Brillouin zone with the cavity Free Spectral Range. Experimental realizations of different configurations are presented and examples of spectra are reported, in a phenomenological agreement with the numerical findings of the theory.