Abstract

At the onset of chaos in an optical bistable system with delayed feedback, there can arise intermittent transitions between huge numbers of different oscillation modes.^[1] It has been proposed that by introducing a simple feedback control of the input optical power, the chaotic transitions can be used to adaptively search among the oscillation modes.^[2] Computer simulations and experiments in a hybrid-electro-optic system have confirmed the validity of this proposal.^[3] This proposal is significant because it demonstrates the potential of using nonlinear optical chaos to realise processing functions in simple optical devices. By making use of intrinsic complex dynamics, an optical chaos device could be used to perform functions which would otherwise require multiple devices or complicated circuits. For example, an optical bistable system with delayed feedback can be used as a combined generator/memory for optical data pulse sequences functioning at an optical communication node to search for and select multi-bit binary addresses or control signals.^[4]

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