Abstract

The dynamic properties of semiconductor lasers subject to varying levels of optical feedback and optical injection are complex and still not fully understood [1]. An experimental demonstration of the suppression of the transition to regime IV coherence collapse in an external cavity diode laser (ECDL) has been achieved by injection locking the ECDL to a single frequency tunable diode laser. This work suggests that coherence collapse and other dynamic instabilities in the output of a semiconductor laser with varying levels of feedback can be avoided (without the use of expensive optical isolators), if self locking, or injection locking via an integrated slave/ master module are employed. Such a system would be insensitive to additional optical feedback when it is injection locked to itself or another source, and has distinct advantages over chaos control techniques such as high frequency injection [2].

© 1998 IEEE