Optical bistability in semiconductor injection lasers

Hitoshi Kawaguchi

Ian H. White

Haruto Nakajima

Linlin Li

A unified description for semiconductor lasers based from below to above threshold with external light injection is presented using small-signal analysis. The threshold of a semiconductor laser can be reduced by external light injection. The gain change of the laser due to external light injection reaches its maximum just at threshold. Optical bistability in a semiconductor laser is found to be varied continuously from below to above threshold. An analytical expression for the bistable loop bandwidth is presented. There is an optical bias for a laser to maximize the loop bandwidth for a fixed injection power. The results are in good agreement with experiments.>

M.J. Adams, H.J. Westlake, M.J. O’Mahony

Masakatsu Okada, Hiroshi Kikuchi, Kenji Takizawa +1 more

Optical bistability in a Fabry-Perot semiconductor laser amplifier when two optical inputs detuned from the resonant wavelength of a semiconductor laser amplifier are injected is discussed. A split branch is found in the optical output versus input characteristics in addition to conventional optical bistability behavior. It is shown analytically and experimentally that set and reset can be achieved in the optical output of the semiconductor laser amplifier for each wavelength by applying two detuned optical pulses and using the split branch.>