Abstract

Recently it was experimentally demonstrated [1,2] that the emission wavelength of bidirectional semiconductor ring lasers (SRLs) can be selected by optical injection at wavelengths corresponding to the modes of the cavity; upon removal of the optical injection, the emission wavelength remains stable at the chosen value. It was found that this multistability can coexist with the directional bistability shown by these devices, therefore it can be of interest for all-optical signal processing applications at higher-logical level [3]. On the other hand, this multistability has, to our knowledge, never been explained or reported in Fabry-Pérot (FP) lasers, hence it recalls for an explanation of the different behavior shown by ring RLs and FP lasers regarding multistability.

© 2011 Optical Society of America