Numerical Bifurcation Analysis for Multisection Semiconductor Lasers

The roots of a variety of nonlinear phenomena observed numerically and experimentally such as, e.g., self-pulsations, excitability, hysteresis, or chaos are understood and located in the parameter plane.

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of a multisection laser implementing a delayed optical feedback experiment where the length of the cavity is comparable to the length of the laser. First, we reduce the traveling-wave model with gain dispersion (a hyperbolic system of PDEs) to a system of ODEs describing the semiflow on a local center manifold. Then we analyze the dynamics of the system of ODEs using numerical continuation methods (AUTO). We explore the plane of the two parameters---feedback phase and feedback strength---to obtain a bifurcation diagram for small and moderate feedback strength. This diagram permits us to understand the roots of a variety of nonlinear phenomena observed numerically and experimentally such as, e.g., self-pulsations, excitability, hysteresis, or chaos, and to locate them in the parameter plane.