Permanent and Transient Synchronized Chaos in Large Arrays of Complex-Coupled Semiconductor Lasers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that synchronized chaos can occur in large, complex arrays of coupled semiconductor lasers, including transient regimes with finite disorder, confirmed by Lyapunov analysis.

Contribution

It extends the understanding of synchronized chaos from small laser systems to large, disordered arrays, revealing transient regimes and their statistical properties.

Findings

Synchronized chaos persists in arrays of up to 11 lasers.

Transient synchronized chaos has a bi-exponential lifetime distribution.

Lyapunov spectra confirm the chaotic nature of the states.

Abstract

Synchronized chaos has previously been predicted and observed in a small number (3) of mutually coupled lasers. In this work, we demonstrate that this phenomenon can theoretically persist in significantly broader scenarios, extending to complex coupled arrays of up to 11 lasers and arrays with finite built-in disorder. We quantify the resulting high-dimensional dynamics by computing Lyapunov spectra and the associated Lyapunov dimension, confirming that the observed states are chaotic rather than quasi-periodic. Furthermore, we uncover a regime of transient synchronized chaos where the system eventually escapes from perfectly synchronized chaotic state into an asynchronous state. We find that the lifetime of these transient states follows a bi-exponential distribution.