Optical injection induced polarization bistability in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Abstract

We report the observation of bistable polarization switching in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser under optical injection. The wavelength dependence of the switching is measured. It is found that this polarization switching is achieved through injection locking where both the wavelength and the polarization of the vertical-cavity laser are locked to the injected optical signal.

All-optical Flip-flop Operation Based on Polarization Bistability of Conventional-type 1.55-㎛ Wavelength Single-mode VCSELs

“…When the driving current was decreased from a high bias current, the X-polarization mode output was maintained until it reached 4.2 mA, and then switched back to the Y-polarization mode output below 4.2 mA. Similar behaviors were reported by other groups for the 835 nm and 1550 nm bistable VCSELs [15,13]. It was observed from our measurements that this polarization bistability property of the VCSEL with change of the driving current varied from chip to chip dependent on the VCSEL chip's condition such as strain, gain-offset, uniformity and circular symmetricity during the fabrication process even within one wafer.…”

“…Optical injection-induced polarization switching and AOFF operation of VCSELs have been reported previously by many research groups [12][13][14][15]. Conventional VCSELs are fabricated in a circular cylindrical-shaped geometry.…”

Nonlinear dynamics induced by parallel and orthogonal optical injection in 1550 nm Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs)

“…In particular, orthogonally-polarized optical injection has been used to obtain Polarization Switching (PS) and Polarization Bistability (PB) in short- [8] [9] and in long-wavelength VCSELs [10][11][12][13][14]. Single mode operation has been attained in multiple transverse mode VCSELs [15] under orthogonal optical injection.…”

“…Additionally, the effect of polarized optical injection in VCSELs has attracted increasing interest in the last years [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. In particular, orthogonally-polarized optical injection has been used to obtain Polarization Switching (PS) and Polarization Bistability (PB) in short- [8] [9] and in long-wavelength VCSELs [10][11][12][13][14].…”

Control of emitted light polarization in a 1310 nm dilute nitride spin-vertical cavity surface emitting laser subject to circularly polarized optical injection

“…32 Polarization switching (PS) and its associated polarization bistability (PB) phenomena in conventional VCSELs are interesting consequences of optical injection and can be achieved through linearly polarized optical injection. PS and PB have been experimentally examined under polarized optical injection in conventional VCSELs emitting at shortwavelengths [33][34][35][36] and long-wavelengths. [37][38][39][40][41] Polarized optical injection (parallel, orthogonal, [42][43][44] and elliptical [45][46][47] ) has been applied in conventional VCSELs to obtain PS and PB between the two linear and orthogonal polarizations of the device, from parallel to orthogonal polarization and vice versa.…”