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Deterministic polarization chaos from a laser diode

Nature Photonics volume 7, pages 60–65 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Fifty years after the invention of the laser diode, and forty years after the butterfly effect signified the unpredictability of deterministic chaos, it is commonly believed that a laser diode behaves like a damped nonlinear oscillator and cannot be driven into chaotic operation without additional forcing or parameter modulation. Here, we counter that belief and report the first example of a free-running laser diode generating chaos. The underlying physics comprises a nonlinear coupling between two elliptically polarized modes in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser. We identify chaos in experimental time series and show, theoretically, the bifurcations leading to single- and double-scroll attractors with characteristics similar to Lorenz chaos. The reported polarization chaos resembles noise-driven mode hopping, but shows opposite statistical properties. Our findings open up new research areas for the creation of controllable and integrated sources of optical chaos.

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Figure 1: Experimental observations showing chaotic polarization mode hopping in a quantum-dot VCSEL.
Figure 2: Route to chaos in the SFM framework.
Figure 3: Statistical properties of mode dwell time and comparison between polarization and Lorenz chaos.
Figure 4: Chaos identification.
Figure 5: Discrimination between chaos and coloured noise.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge support from the Conseil Régional de Lorraine, Fondation Supélec, FWO-Vlaanderen, the METHUSALEM programme of the Flemish government, and the Interuniversity Attraction Poles programme of the Belgian Science Policy Office (grant no. IAP P7-35 ‘photonics@be’).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Supélec OPTEL Research Group, Laboratoire Matériaux Optiques, Photonique et Systèmes (LMOPS) EA-4423, 2 rue Edouard Belin, Metz, 57070, France

    Martin Virte & Marc Sciamanna

  2. Department of Applied Physics and Photonics (B-PHOT TONA), Brussels Photonics Team, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, Brussels, 1050, Belgium

    Martin Virte, Krassimir Panajotov & Hugo Thienpont

  3. Institute of Solid-State Physics, 72 Tzarigradsko Chaussee Boulevard, Sofia, 1784, Bulgaria

    Krassimir Panajotov

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  1. Martin Virte
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  4. Marc Sciamanna
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Contributions

M.S. and K.P. initiated the study. M.V. and M.S. performed the simulation of the laser dynamics. M.V., K.P. and M.S. carried out chaos identification from experimental and theoretical time traces. All authors discussed the results and contributed to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Marc Sciamanna.

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Virte, M., Panajotov, K., Thienpont, H. et al. Deterministic polarization chaos from a laser diode. Nature Photon 7, 60–65 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.286

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