Abstract

The effects of an external optical feedback on semiconductor laser properties have long been a subject of considerable interest[1-7], and continue to attract growing attention among various scientific groups. Such an interest is in great part due to the wealth of reported observations, and the lack of a definite interface between theories, which do not always corroborate, and experiments. For example, based on their experimental data, some authors have suggested that the semiconductor laser with optical feedback could be a good candidate for the observation of optical chaos[2,5,6]. The idea stemmed from the fact that the feedback signal would provide the necessary third degree of freedom which when added to the coupled rate equations would result in a 3D autonomous system (just as in the ’Lorenz’ case of turbulence in fluids) which when the conditions of an instability emergence are fulfilled may give rise to some route towards optical chaos. Precise characterisation of such chaotic behavior however still remains obscure.

© 1992 Optical Society of America