Abstract

Cavity solitons (CS) have been demonstrated in VCSELs with feedback from a diffraction grating [1] and display many qualities that are of interest to all-optical processing and telecommunication applications. They act like independent micro-lasers with coherent emission and narrow linewidth. They are independent and controllable, and may be switched on and off by means of external injection. They therefore act like an optical bit which may be useful in optical memory applications. They have the potential to drift, making them potentially useful for all-optical delay lines. Applications require a method to control the formation and movement of CS. Intra-cavity photonic crystal lattices [2] are a way to achieve such control and here we extend this idea to use external injection of a spatially modulated laser beam as the control scheme.

© 2009 IEEE