Intrinsic gain switching in optically injected quantum dot laser lasing simultaneously from the ground and excited state

Lukasz Olejniczak (1, 2) , Krassimir Panajotov (2) , Sebastian Wieczorek (3) , Hugo Thienpont (2) , Marc Sciamanna (1)

1 LMOPS - Laboratoire Matériaux Optiques, Photonique et Systèmes
2 TONA - Department of Applied Physics and Photonics [Brussels]
3 Mathematics Research Institute

We analyze theoretically nonlinear dynamics of an optically injected two-mode quantum dot laser lasing simultaneously from the ground and excited states. We show that although the external optical signal is injected into the ground-state mode alone, it can lead to the generation of regular picosecond pulses and pulse packages in the intensity of the excited-state mode. Generation of regular streams of picosecond pulses is attributed to an intrinsic gain switching mechanism where the relaxation time is modulated by the oscillations in the occupation of the ground and excited energy states

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Lukasz Olejniczak, Krassimir Panajotov, Sebastian Wieczorek, Hugo Thienpont, Marc Sciamanna. Intrinsic gain switching in optically injected quantum dot laser lasing simultaneously from the ground and excited state. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 2010, 27 (11), pp.2416-2423. ⟨10.1364/JOSAB.27.002416⟩. ⟨hal-00537358⟩