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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

Polarization Slaving Mechanisms in Vectorial Bistable Lasers

Guy Ropars, A. Le Floch, Roger Le Naour

Published Mar 15, 1987• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The basic mechanisms of external all-optical control of polarization bistabilities are isolated in one- and two-frequency systems. Induced rotation and induced inhibition mechanisms by vectorial injection in lasers are theoretically predicted and experimentally shown in both systems. The sensitivity of the vectorial systems leads to subfemtojoule switching energies, which correspond to the theoretical threshold values. A reduction by four orders of magnitude compared to the lowest energy demonstrated in scalar passive systems is obtained.

DOI
10.1209/0295-5075/3/6/008

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Journal de physique•Jan 1, 1986•4 citations
The basic mechanisms of external all-optical control of polarization bistabilities are isolated in one- and two-frequency systems. Induced rotation and induced inhibition mechanisms by vectorial injection in lasers are theoretically predicted and experimentally shown in both systems. The sensitivity of the vectorial systems leads to subfemtojoule switching energies, which correspond to the theoretical threshold values. A reduction by four orders of magnitude compared to the lowest energy demonstrated in scalar passive systems is obtained.
The all-optical control of the polarization in a vectorial bistable monomode laser by injection with a second laser is analyzed theoretically and performed experimentally. The polarization is shown to switch following either an externally induced rotation or an externally induced inhibition mechanism. The usual theory of scalar-locking phenomena is extended to vectorial systems. We show that there is a single locking range in the induced rotation process occurring for low phase anisotropy values, whereas there are two distinct locking ranges in the induced inhibition process for higher anisotropy values. The theoretical results are in good agreement with experiments realized with 3He–20Ne lasers. By scanning the injected signal frequency, optical gates with high signal-to-noise ratios are experimentally obtained.
The basic mechanisms of the polarization switching in vectorial bistable lasers are studied both theoretically and experimentally versus internal parameters. In particular, by scanning the frequency of a gas laser with two linearly polarized eigenstates, two quite different flipping processes with hysteresis occur according to the linear-phase-anisotropy value of the cavity. Indeed, when the anisotropy increases, rotation and inhibition mechanisms appear successively. The variations of the hysteresis loop for different anisotropy and excitation values are theoretically found to be opposed in the two processes. Additional evolutions of the polarization, such as multiple switchings in the inhibition mechanism and ``hybrid'' hysteresis loops, are predicted. The experiments, essentially performed on a monomode 3.39-\ensuremath{\mu}m $^{3}\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}^{20}$Ne laser containing an adjustable linear phase anisotropy, confirm the existence of the two processes and their corresponding properties. These processes may also occur in other quasi-isotropic lasers versus other internal parameters, such as, for instance, the injection current in semiconductor lasers. In this case the TE and TM modes flip only in the inhibition mechanism when the bistability conditions are satisfied. The knowledge of the basic flipping mechanisms in the laser itself enables us to understand and realize the external optical-polarization control by an anisotropic feedback (one-frequency systems). Induced-rotation and induced-inhibition mechanisms are then theoretically predicted and experimentally verified. Sensitive optical gates are realized by varying the feedback phase in both processes.
Optical frequency bistability and power bistability in semiconductor lasers biased from below to above threshold are presented using the unified description of semiconductor lasers with external light injection. A new method is given to calculate the bistable frequency and power loop widths. When the bias current of a laser is fixed, there is a lowest power for the external light to realize optical frequency bistability. And this lowest power reaches its minimum just at threshold. The optical injection level (defined as the ratio of the injected power to the power emitted by the free-running laser) must be larger than a certain value to obtain the bistability. This level may be larger than unity for a laser biased below threshold. On the other hand, for a given bias current, there is a lowest frequency detuning between the electric field of the laser and the injected field to achieve the power bistability. And this detuning must be negative for any bias current (below or above threshold) of the laser. The results are in good agreement with experiments.>