All-Optical Directional Switching in Bistable Semiconductor-Ring Lasers

Trita, Andrea; Mezősi, G.; Latorre-Vidal, M. J.; Zanola, M.; Strain, Michael J.; Bragheri, Francesca; Sorel, Marc; Giuliani, G.

doi:10.1109/jqe.2013.2279510

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…It can also be observed that for η greater than approximately −27 dB, τ s and ∆ f do not reduce any longer. The minimum switching time is on the order of 1 ns, which is comparable to the recovery time in SRLs subject to external injection and to modal switching triggered by backscattering [6,7,12]. For instance, alternate oscillations due to intra-cavity backscattering that couples CCW and CW lasing modes as well as relaxation oscillations due to pulsation of charge carriers have been reported on a similar time scales [6,7].…”

mentioning

confidence: 84%

“…1(b). The optical spectrum shows a single-mode operation with a side-mode suppression ratio approaching 30 dB [7]. When the SRL is subject to feedback and exhibits SW oscillations, the CCW and CW optical spectra become multi-moded as shown in Fig.…”

mentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The unidirectional regime is often associated with bistability in which the lasing direction can be switched upon externally injected optical perturbations [6]. Such a unidirectional bistability has been investigated for implementing all-optical flip-flops [7]. On one hand, the logical operations of SRLs have been utilized to demonstrate NAND and NOR logical gates and optical regenerators [8][9][10][11].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Square-wave oscillations in a semiconductor ring laser subject to counter-directional delayed mutual feedback

Zhuang

et al. 2016

Opt. Lett.

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Square-wave (SW) switching of the lasing direction in a semiconductor ring laser (SRL) is investigated using counter-directional mutual feedback. The SRL is electrically biased to a regime that supports lasing in either counter clockwise (CCW) or clockwise (CW) direction. The CCW and CW modes are then counter-directionally coupled by optical feedback, where CCW-to-CW and CW-to-CCW feedback are delayed by τ 1 and τ 2 , respectively. The mutual feedback invokes SW oscillations of the CCW and CW emission intensities with period T ≈ τ 1 + τ 2 . When τ 1 = τ 2 , symmetric SWs with a duty cycle of 50% are obtained, where the switching time and the electrical linewidth of the SWs can be respectively reduced to 1.4 ns and 1.1 kHz by strengthening the feedback. When τ 1 ̸ = τ 2 , asymmetric SWs are obtained with a tunable duty cycle of τ 1 /(τ 1 + τ 2 ). Highorder symmetric SWs with period T = (τ 1 + τ 2 )/n can also be observed for some integer n. Symmetric SWs of order n = 13 with period T = 10.3 ns are observed experimentally.

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confidence: 84%

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confidence: 93%

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confidence: 99%

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Square-wave oscillations in a semiconductor ring laser subject to counter-directional delayed mutual feedback

Zhuang

et al. 2016

Opt. Lett.

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“…For example, a unidirectional Raman laser can emerge in a silicon ring resonator through the asymmetric nonlinear loss 40 or the onnegligible longitudinal components of the optical field 41 . Besides, the unidirectional lasing was also reported in III-V compound semiconductor ring lasers using self and cross-gain saturation effects from the carriers 42,43 . However, the limited Q factors of these systems would strongly restrict further development and applications with ultralow power consumption.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Reconfigurable symmetry-broken laser in a symmetric microcavity

et al. 2020

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The coherent light source is one of the most important foundations in both optical physics studies and applied photonic devices. However, the whispering gallery microcavity, as a prime platform for novel light sources, has the intrinsically chiral symmetry and severely rules out access to directional light output, all-optical flip-flops, efficient light extraction, etc. Here, we demonstrate a reconfigurable symmetry-broken microlaser in an ultrahigh-Q whispering gallery microcavity with the symmetric structure, in which a chirality of lasing field is empowered spontaneously by the optical nonlinear effect. Experimentally, the ratio of counter-propagating lasing intensities is found to exceed 160:1, and the chirality can be controlled dynamically and all-optically by the bias in the pump direction. This work not only presents a distinct recipe for coherent light sources with robust and reconfigurable performance, but also opens up an unexplored avenue to symmetry-broken physics in optical micro-structures.

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“…Directional bistability has been extensively investigated due to its direct application for performing all-optical processing, because unlike previously proposed optical bistables [9], SRLs meet simultaneously all the stringent requirements for the development of viable integrated functional photonics, such as speed, small footprint, low switching energy, and easy read-write mechanism. This feature has been exploited to demonstrate applications such as all-optical memories [10], logic gates [11], flip-flops [12], random bit generators [13,14], and data processors [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Directional reversals and multimode dynamics in semiconductor ring lasers

2014

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We investigate the dynamics of longitudinal modes in quantum-well semiconductor ring lasers by means of a spatiotemporal traveling-wave model. We report the existence of a multimode instability in such a system that provokes a periodic deterministic directional reversal involving jumps between consecutive longitudinal modes. The switching sequence follows the modal frequencies from blue to red, and every modal jump is accompanied by a reversal of the direction of emission. We characterize and analyze this instability via a bifurcation analysis of the full traveling-wave model as well as by performing a linear stability analysis of the monochromatic solutions.

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All-Optical Directional Switching in Bistable Semiconductor-Ring Lasers

Cited by 13 publications

References 16 publications

Square-wave oscillations in a semiconductor ring laser subject to counter-directional delayed mutual feedback

Square-wave oscillations in a semiconductor ring laser subject to counter-directional delayed mutual feedback

Reconfigurable symmetry-broken laser in a symmetric microcavity

Directional reversals and multimode dynamics in semiconductor ring lasers

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