Time-delay signature, laser chimera, and their disappearance

What is it about?

External cavity semiconductor lasers, represented by individual lasers or laser array, are often utilized in high-speed random bit generators, chaos-based lidars and communication systems because they are reliable sources of rich optical chaos caused by time-delay feedback. However, the presence of a time delay entails its signature manifestation in the laser output, which negatively affects the operation of systems based on external cavity semiconductor lasers. In our work, we have numerically demonstrated a path to complete time-delay signature suppression in laser array output due to the dispersion of the system’s internal timescales induced by the dispersion of the array coupling phases. We have shown that when the array is large, the chimera state accompanies the time-delay signature when the part of the array lasers correlates with each other, and the other is chaotic. This is gone too, when the coupling phase dispersion is increased.

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Photo by WrongTog on Unsplash

Photo by WrongTog on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The results obtained shine the light on the origin of the time-delay signature in the chaotic laser array output and pave the way to its control for performance improvement in the chaotic-based systems. Further, it contributes to the studies of the laser arrays and chaotic chimeras that may find applications in nonlinear data processing.

Perspectives