Abstract

Evanescently coupled multi-stripe semiconductor laser arrays show complex spatio-temporal dynamics. Instabilities and random pulsations of the output intensity were observed experimentally.^[1] Transverse multimode operation, oscillatory instabilities and random pulsations were also found in numerical simulations.^[2] In the simulations the nonlinear coupling of negigbouring lasers of the array was shown to be due both to the evanescent coupling of the array modes and the transverse diffusion of carriers. Based on rate equation approximations these pheomenological models rely on specific functions for the gain and the absorption in the laser. However, it seems desirable to treat these and other properties on a more microscopic level.

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